


Lost in Time and Space

by FleaBee



Series: Through Time and Space [1]
Category: Red Dwarf, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dimension Travel, Gen, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-08-24 09:59:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8368063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleaBee/pseuds/FleaBee
Summary: The Stargate malfunctions sending SG-1 three million years into the future aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter One Written for The Review Lounge, Too 2015 Green Room Challenge at fanfiction.net Challenge Twelve: Colliding Dimensions
> 
> Beta read by Beta Read by InsertImaginativeNameHere

The group known as SG-1 slowly stood to their feet. This was not the planet they had been travelling to. No Stargate was insight or MALP around. The room had lit up moments after they'd arrived. They were standing in a storeroom of some type. No one was around. No sound suggesting that people were nearby. The air in the room was stale and smelt of diesel. The eerie sounds of fans and machinery clicking away undisturbed by their arrival. The equipment in sight looked aged, covered with a film of dust. Wherever they were, no one had been here for many years. This incident was reminding the group all too much of the time they ended up in 1969.

"Carter." Jack looked at the only woman of their group.

"I don't have an explanation for what happened, sir. There were no solar flares predicted for Earth. We've been better at predicting them since the 1969 incident. Maybe the solar flare was for the for the planet we travelled to. Or we went through a sun experiencing a solar flare." She continued listing off possible theories to explain how they'd ended in a location without a Stargate. Theories that Jack didn't understand.

"Let's find out where and when we are," Jack ordered his team.

They armed themselves and exited the room. Signs in the corridor were all in two languages. English and an unknown language - unknown even to the linguist of the group.

Daniel told them, "This language shouldn't be too hard to learn if these are actual translations. JMC is labelled on everything as well, I wonder what it means."

"Company acronym?" Sam suggested.

"I'd assume so. It was on all the boxes in the room we arrived in," Daniel noted. "Similar to how everything for the base is marked as SGC."

They walked for many hours, not finding any signs of people. Opening doors to rooms that had long since been abandoned.

"O'Neil," Teal'c alerted the group. "It appears we are on a ship."

"Carter, any ideas where we are?" Jack asked.

Sam stood at the window for a long time, glancing at the different stars surrounding them. If anyone could figure out their location from the stars, it was the astrophysicist of the group.

"No sir, I don't recognise any of the star systems. We are in an entirely unknown part of the galaxy," she replied.

"Let's find a computer and find out where the closest planet with a Stargate is," Jack suggested.

"There are monitors everywhere, yet I don't see an interface for any of them," Sam pointed out. "Maybe when the ship was running it showed updates."

There was nothing on the ship indicating that it was nightfall. Going by their watches, it was getting late.

The group of four entered a small room setting up camp for the night.

"T, you take first watch," Jack asked the most silent member of the group. Teal'c nodded. "I'll take next watch. Daniel, Carter. You two get as much sleep as you can, we have a long day tomorrow. We'll need your expertise if we're ever going to get home," Jack ordered the two scientists.

 

They'd been on the ship for four full days. Four full days without coming across another person or even a computer for Daniel and Carter to look at. They'd covered several floors a day, finding nothing. According to the stairways they'd taken, there were many floors above and below.

"There are also a lot of vending machines," Daniel pointed out. "Maybe we should attempt to use one as a computer interface."

"You can interface with the computers in the drive room." The vending machine answered in a crackling tone to everyone's surprise.

They all shared a glance before turning back to the vending machine. They'd been walking past vending machines for days and not one had attempted to talk to them. They hadn't even tried to use them since they still had rations for the mission.

"How would we get to the drive room?" Jack asked the vending machine.

"How should I know? I'm just a vending machine. All I do is sit here all day. Every day.  You should ask the lift. She gets to travel. Unlike me who is stuck here day after day," the vending machine complained. It was evident that it didn't like sitting in one spot all the time.

"Where would we find the lift?" Daniel asked.

"That is her just there. Directly across from me."

"Thank you," Daniel said to the vending machine.

"You just thanked a vending machine," Jack teased.

Daniel shrugged. "It talked."

Jack pressed the button for the lift. The display lit up counting down the time. " _Expected arrival time 1 hour 36 minutes 50 seconds._ "

"We have to wait that long for the lift?" Jack asked.

"What do you expect? That you can instantly teleport between the floors. She has to travel here first before you can talk to her," the vending machine said in a crackled tone as if they were stupid.

"Do the stairs lead to the drive room?" Sam asked.

Eventually. But that would take you weeks to travel to whatever floor the drive room is on. From talking to the lift, it takes her four hours to go from the top floor to the bottom floor if she doesn't have to stop for passengers."

"Are there many passengers?" Sam asked.

"Not anymore. I heard a rumour from the vending machine sixty floors up that the ship is now run by cats," the vending machine told the small group.

"Cats? Where are these cats?" Jack asked.

"Don't know, never seen them myself. You're the first people I have seen since the radiation leak. Michael Cranston, he was the last human I served before he died. He ordered a coffee. Died right where the guy with the tattooed head is now standing. Is he a hologram? I've never seen that tattoo before."

"I'll leave you two to the vending machine. T and I will keep looking around while waiting for the lift." Jack told the two doctors.

 

Three hours twenty-two minutes later the group had finally made it to the drive room. They'd been informed by the lift that since they were not crew they couldn't watch the movie or have cyanide pills in the event of a crash.

"Is a crash likely that we will need cyanide pills?" Jack asked Carter.

"Well, it doesn't look like anything has been maintained in a long time, sir. The lift failing is very likely." Sam replied to the Colonel.

Jack got very bored during the lift trip, using the chance to sleep while Teal'c meditated. Sam and Daniel sat talking science together, keeping watch for the other two members, Sam calculating how fast the lift was going.

When the lift finally stopped, they stepped out onto a floor that was cleaner than anything else on the ship. It didn't take long to find the drive room since it was close to the lift.

Sam went directly to the computer console.

"It's like nothing I have seen before," Carter said about the computer system.

"Can you operate it?" Jack enquired.

"Yes, sir. The technology is primitive compared to what we've come across in the past. Everything is mechanical. No crystals," Sam told him. "Plus everything is in English and the second language we've seen everywhere on the ship. It's a regular computer interface, despite being different, it is similar enough to the base computers."

They all stopped talking when they heard arguing. It was the first sign of life they'd seen in the four day's they'd been here. Teal'c and Jack both aimed their weapons at the doorway. They didn't know if they'd come across an enemy or potential new friends.

"Will you stop following me, and reading that book to me!" one of the voices demanded. Whoever he was, he was obviously frustrated with his companion.

The other voice was trying to reason with him. "You're certainly not going to read it yourself. Someone has to make sure you're looking after yourself. It's guaranteed that you're not going to do it and it's even less likely that the Cat will help take care of you. You're going to get a beer smoothie again. I just know it. It's from that vending machine in the drive room. He won't listen to me."

The ship really did have a cat by the sound of it. Maybe it was infested with cats if the vending machine thought that the ship was possibly run by cats.

"I'm going to have my beer milkshake and you can't stop me," the first voice argued.

The two men stopped walked into the drive room and stopped in shock at seeing SG-1. One of the men, Caucasian had a H on his head and looked like he wanted to bolt. SG-1 were wondering if they had come across a Jaffa of a minor system Lord they'd never come across before. The other man who looked of African descent wasn't even paying attention to the guns, he was looking at the Captain.

"Holly," the man who wanted a beer milkshake called out. The one of African descent.

A man in a sleeping cap appeared on all the screens in the room. "This better be important. I was trying to sleep. Who're they?"

"That is what we were going to ask you. Aren't you meant to detect when unknown people come aboard?" The possible Jaffa asked.

"I don't detect any vessels nearby," Holly replied. "Maybe you're imagining them, Arn."

"Oh yes, we are imagining four total strangers," the possible Jaffa that was called Arn answered with heavy sarcasm.

"Whoever you are, I hope you're single. Would you like to go on a date with me?" the one they assumed might be the minor system lord asked Sam.

"Ignore him." Arn rolled his eyes. "The last woman he saw was a female version of himself. It didn't end well. I'm Second Technician Rimmer and this is Third Technician Lister."

"You can call me Dave," Lister said to the woman.

"Colonel O'Neil." Jack introduced himself. "Captain Carter, Dr Jackson and Teal'c," he pointed to his team.

"Are you a doctor-doctor or a scientist-doctor?" Rimmer asked slight hope in his voice.

"My doctorate is in archaeology," Daniel replied.

"Oh," Rimmer said with disappointment. "I was hoping you'd know how to deliver a baby by caesarean. I've been trying to train the scutters, but it hasn't been going well? Listy here got himself into a bit of a pickle and now he's pregnant."

"I'm not pregnant. It's impossible. Men ... can't ... have ... babies." Lister insisted rolling his eyes at the other man.

"He's in denial," Rimmer replied.

"So even for your people it's not possible for men to fall pregnant, and yet he is, according to you, he's pregnant," Daniel asked trying to work out if he had his information correct.

"Under normal circumstances it is impossible for a man to fall pregnant," Rimmer told them. "We weren't under normal circumstances when he got himself into his current predicament. How did you get here? Are you with the Space Corps?" Rimmer asked.

"Never heard of the Space Corps," Jack replied. "We belong to a group called the SGC. We come from a planet very far away from here."

"Aliens," Rimmer declared with excitement.

Lister rolled his eyes. "How many times do I have to tell you, there is no such thing as aliens?"

"So you've never heard of the Goa'uld, Tok'ra, Nox, Asgard or the replicators?" Daniel listed off, clearly excited.

"Isn't Asgard where Thor and Loki from the Avengers movie come from?" Lister asked. "And nox is a spell in Harry Potter. Never heard of the others."

SG-1 shared a look. From the sound of it, these people were not from another planet, these people seemed like they were from Earth. What other planet had Harry Potter or the Avengers?

"What planet do you come from?" Daniel asked.

"He comes from Earth. Liverpool to be precise. I grew up on Io." Rimmer told them.

"Io?" Jack questioned.

"It's one of Jupiter's moons," Sam told the Colonel.

"I knew that," Jack replied in a cheery tone.

"Which planet are you chaps from?" Rimmer asked.

"We're also from Earth. Teal'c is from Chulak." Jack replied.

"Never heard of Chulak," Rimmer replied. "Is it one of the settlements outside of the solar system? I heard rumours of the Space Corp had set up a few colonies."

"It's approximately 2000 light years from Earth," Teal'c responded. "It was not developed by the Space Corp."

"Where we come from, Earth is the only inhabited planet in the solar system," Sam told Rimmer and Lister.

"The planets and moons started being colonised and terraformed in the late 21st century," Rimmer explained.

"So we are in the future," Sam exclaimed, "For us, it is October 1997."

"2183 plus approximately three million years," Rimmer replied.

SG-1 one shared a look. They were not sure if they should believe these people. They had been in situations before with the goa'uld faking to be from Earth and different years.

"We're over three million years into the future?" Jack asked in disbelief. "Carter, what the hell happened for us to become stuck three million years into the future?"

"I don't know sir," Sam replied. "I still don't know how we got here. Do either of you know where the closest planet is with a Stargate?"

"What's a Stargate?" Lister asked.

SG-1 one shared a look before Sam gave them a basic rundown on what a Stargate was and how it worked.

"You mean like on that show Wormhole X'treme?" Rimmer questioned, pulling a face. "I hated that show."

"Nothing like that exists," Lister told them.

"How do we get home without a Stargate?" Sam asked her team.


	2. Two

Rimmer showed the group around the ship or at least the part of the ship they had been living in. Lister sulking as he followed the group.

"What is the H on your head?" Sam asked him. Hoping she didn't sound too rude. She really wanted to know if he was a Jaffa or not. So far they had not acted anything like gou'ald or Jaffa, they had been tricked before.

"It stands for Hologram. It's so that people know not to walk through me." Rimmer replied and then indicated to Teal'c. "Isn't your friend there also a hologram? I've never seen that symbol on his head before. Some companies like to use different symbols besides the H to represent a hologram."

"This means that I was formally the first Prime to Apophis. I am not a hologram. I am a Jaffa." Teal'c replied.

"So you're an artificial intelligence. You're not a real person?" Sam asked with intrigue. "Do you mind if I touch you? I've never seen a hologram like you before. I was sure you were a real person."

"Why would anyone make an AI as annoying as him?" Jack asked.

"Jack, that's rude." Daniel scolded his superior.

"I am a holographic projection of the person who was once known as Arnold Rimmer. The real me died in the radiation leak. All the crew have their mind scanned and saved to disc when they join. Rather depressing that my whole personality is on one disc. Under normal circumstances, I'd never have been brought back. Normally I don't like people touching me, it reminds me that I'm dead, you, on the other hand, are welcome to."

"Amazing," Sam said as she ran her hand through Rimmer's image. "He really is a hologram sir."

"Why were you brought back if you wouldn't be brought back under normal circumstances?" Daniel asked him.

"Holly chose me to keep Lister sane. He was the only survivor of the radiation leak," Rimmer replied.

"The smeghead is driving me bonkers. Holly must have a few screws loose after three million years alone to choose him for me," Lister complained.

"Who would you have chosen?" Sam asked.

"Kristine Kochanski," Lister smiled and told them all about the girl he'd been interested in, but never had the guts to ask on a date. "She already had a boyfriend. I really regret that I never asked her out."

"Do you have any other family that you want to see again?" Sam asked him.

"I never knew my real parents. My adoptive mother died when I was a baby, my father died when I was six. Gran died when I was thirteen and after that, I went between different foster homes until I was old enough to live on my own." Lister told them. "I don't have any family, but I still want to go back."

"I grew up in foster care," Daniel told Lister. "My parents died when I was eight."

"Wish I grew up in foster care, I hate my parents," Rimmer told them.

"I had a rocky relationship with my father, he didn't cope well after my mother died. I left home as soon as I could," Sam told them.

"What did you do when you divorced your parents?" Lister asked Rimmer.

"I went to boarding school so didn't need anywhere to stay during the school year. During holidays, I would either go away to camps, stay with my aunt and uncle or with John or Frank and Janice." Rimmer replied.

"You divorced your parents, officially or did you just run away from home?" Sam asked.

"Officially," Rimmer replied. "I'm still surprised I won the court case against them."

"My brother and I would just run away from home and go to friends houses when dad was home. Dad, he was really into the Air Force and wanted my brother to follow in his footsteps, instead, I was the one that ended up in the Air Force and my brother is the one with an office job," Sam told them.

Rimmer explained, "My father was too short to meet the Space Corp regulations by one inch. His whole family was with the Space Corp or the military in one form or another. He was obsessed that all his sons would get into the Space Corp. It didn't matter to him that all three of my brothers got in and that two of my brothers were ranked rather high in the Corps. He always let me know how much of a disappointment I was to him for failing to get into the Space Corp myself."

Lister was surprised to find that both Sam and Daniel got along with Rimmer. No one got along with Rimmer ever and yet here the two strangers were having a friendly discussion with him and not looking like they wanted to escape. In fact, they were looking like they were enjoying talking with him.

"What was foster care like for you?" Daniel asked Lister since it was evident that Sam and Rimmer were both in a conversation of their own now.

"What is foster care?" Teal'c asked Jack.

Jack went into a detailed discussion with Teal'c all about the foster care system and explaining more about Earth culture to the alien.

"You can stay in any of these rooms that you wish, I'll have the scutters clean them up for you. Scutters are what we call the service robots," Rimmer told the small group.

"Certainly a lot better than the rooms at the base," Daniel admired.

 

 "How certain are you that your friend is pregnant?" Sam asked Rimmer.

"He had a positive pregnancy test a couple of weeks after we got back from the other dimension," Rimmer replied. "I've had him take the test again two more times since and it hasn't changed. He's also begun to experience cravings for food he wouldn't usually eat. The foods that he does normally eat ... curry has been setting off morning sickness. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't think he was pregnant, but in the universe, we were in gender roles were reverse, including who gave birth to the babies."

Sam nodded. "I want to check this out for myself. Do you have any medical facilities on the ship?" Sam asked.

"Several. There is a full hospital on a different floor, we don't use it since there's is only him. A few clinics and medical bays every few floors and then there are the science labs." Rimmer replied. "The medi-lab we use is just down the hallway."

"Sir, I would like permission to go to the medi-lab and examine Lister," Carter asked her superior.

"Knock yourself out." The colonel replied. "Take T with you, I'll stay with Daniel."

 

After SG-1 had been settled into quarters, Carter had left to pestered Lister in allowing her to examine him to find out if he really was pregnant. She always wanted to know if Dave Lister differed from humans from her own dimension in any way.

"Excuse me, Lister, I was wondering if it would be possible to examine you," Sam asked him. "Rimmer was telling me you have facilities, which I can use." 

"I'm not pregnant," Lister was still insisting.

"My examining you would prove if you are or not," Carter said to him. "Plus we are from a different time, even if you are not pregnant, I would be interested to find out if there are any physical difference between us."

It wasn't easy to get Lister to say yes, in the end, he only agreed so she would agree to be alone with him.

 

Sam followed Rimmer to the medical bay while Lister trudged behind, grumbling that it couldn't be true. Teal'c coming along. Daniel had returned to the Drive Room to read through the computer database guarded by a very bored Jack.

"It should be twins," Rimmer was telling Sam. "A couple of years ago the ship broke the speed of light and we saw future echoes of ourselves. Lister had two babies. We always wondered how he was going to become a father without a woman. Now we know."

"I'm telling you, we're going to get the babies a different way," Lister insisted.

"We had an experience with time travel as well; we ended up in the past, stuck in 1969. Everything that our commander General George Hammond experienced ended up happening to us. We then ended up too far into the future and my niece Cassie was the one who returned us home."

"So the future cannot be changed." Rimmer nodded smugly.

"From what we have experienced so far, it doesn't seem to be able to be changed, but theoretically, it should be possible to modify the future."

Sam examined the facilities and found that she could use and understand majority of the equipment. Despite being in the future, many of the facilities were primitive compared to what she had come across on other planets and ships. The medical equipment didn't seem to be that futuristic at all.

"I was expecting more futuristic gear," Sam commented.

"Why change what works?" Rimmer asked.

"That's true; at least I don't need to learn what I am doing since I am familiar with most of the equipment already. I wish Janet was here, she's an actual doctor," Sam commented. The scientist instructed Dave to sit down, which he did, just to prove to her that he really wasn't pregnant. "Dave, when was the last time you ate and drank?"

Dave answered, "Two hours ago. I was on my way to get something to drink when we ran into you."

"Alcohol?"

"Haven't had any in days. Rimmer refused to let me have anything that isn't good for the _baby_." Lister rolled his eyes. "He's nuts I tell you, Rimmer, that is. Once he gets an idea stuck in his head, he will go with it, even if it isn't true."

Sam nodded satisfied with his response. Rimmer looked away as Sam got a syringe out, confirming that everything was sterile before taking blood from Lister's left arm and got to work with the lab equipment. The sight of needles seemed to make the hologram queasy even though they couldn't affect him.

"That was a lot easier than the scutter you've been training," Lister teased Rimmer.

"What do you expect from service robots? You refused to do your own blood work," Rimmer replied with a shrug. "It may come in necessary one day for you to take your own blood. What are we going to do if you get sick? Remember the last time you got sick? Cat was no help at all."

Sam had done a couple more tests before she told Lister and Rimmer that she'd be a while waiting for the results. Silent Teal'c remained with Sam.

 

"It was late evening when Lister and Rimmer found Daniel and Jack still in the drive room.

"Find anything interesting?" Rimmer asked.

"Yes, I have. I believe we come from not just another time but another dimension," Daniel was telling them. On the screen, he bought up a profile for an older version of himself, Sam and Jack. "The me from this world was ostracised for believing that aliens exist. The big difference between him and I is that in this universe there has never been any evidence that aliens do exist. In my universe aliens exist and I was recruited into a secret branch of the Air Force. He continued working as an archaeologist but was never taken seriously in the community again. Jack and Sam both still work for the Air Force and were major contributors to the American Space Corps. The Space Corps don't exist in our time even as a concept."

"You believe in aliens?" Rimmer asked, lighting up.

"Yes, even when I had no proof of their existence I believed in them," Daniel replied.

"I also believe in aliens even though I have no proof." Rimmer nodded. "My goal is to find aliens and get them to create a new body for me to transfer my mind to."

"He once spent weeks investigating a garbage pod because he thought it was from aliens," Lister told the new arrivals. "It was a garbage pod from this ship, wasn't even one from another ship."

"What is this language?" Daniel asked. "I don't recognise it. I feel like I should, it seems really familiar."

"It's Esperanto," Rimmer replied.

"Are you serious?" Sam asked.

"What's Esperanto?" Jack questioned.

"It's a language made up by L. L Zamenhof in 1887," Daniel replied. "It one of the made-up languages I never bothered learning since I didn't have a use for it at the time. It's not meant to be hard to pick up if I ever do want to learn."

"You know what this made-up language is Carter?" Jack looked towards the other scientist.

"Yes sir, it's used in a lot of circles by kids into gaming, role-playing games, science fiction," Sam rattled off.

"So it's only used by geeks and nerds?" Jack asked.

"Not just geeks and nerds," Daniel informed him. "Several schools in Hungary and China teach Esperanto in schools. It's easier to learn than English, it was designed as universal means of communication."

"The US Army even published an Esperanto military phrase book, my father had a copy," Sam told Jack.

"Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed language in the modern world," Daniel said to him.

"So even more popular then Klingon and Elvish?" Jack asked.

"I haven't looked at the statistics for a while, but I believe yes it's still the case," Daniel replied and turned his attention back to Rimmer. "Esperanto, is it an official language?"

"Yes it is," Rimmer replied. "It's the official language of the Space Corp and has been since the formation. All spacecraft and space stations, it's a legal requirement to have everything in Esperanto and the next most spoken language of a crew of a ship. The Red Dwarf is made up mostly of English-speaking crew from Earth and the space colonies. There are ships out there that only speak Chinese, India, Polish, French, Swahili, and Latin."

"Isn't Latin a dead language?" Jack asked.

"When the colonies were being formed on the moons and planets a few colonies decided to revive dead languages such as Latin and Welsh. Others decided to go with made-up languages like Elvish, Klingon and that language used on the old TV show Futurama. The complete history of settling the Milky Way is in the ship's library, I've never read it since it's only in Esperanto."

"I'll have to read it once I finish learning the language," Daniel replied.

"I had the scutters clean two rooms for your team," Rimmer said to Jack. "Are you sure you only want two rooms, we can get more cleaned?"

"Thank you, but two is fine," Jack replied. "We should get Sam otherwise she won't go to bed," Jack suggested. 

 

Sam was frowning at the computer screen, she turned to see who had entered. "Dave, just the person I need to see. How far along are you meant to be?"

"Seventeen days," Rimmer replied, not letting Lister have a chance to answer.

"Are you saying that your results also say I'm pregnant?" Lister asked.

"Not only that, your readings suggest you should be fifteen weeks along. Counting for twins, that's still too far along unless you got the date wrong."

"The date can't be wrong," Rimmer replied. "The test has to be mistaken. There is no possible way before that point in time."

"I'm not a doctor, but I am a scientist. I ran the test multiple times. The results were the same every single time." Sam informed them. "I'd like to do ultrasound."

Lister nodded nervously. Jack, Daniel and Teal'c went to the hallway. Rimmer stayed, constantly talking to the nervous Lister.

"They're too big," Rimmer said when the first baby showed up on the ultrasound. "I read a lot of books, and at this point in time, they should not be that big."

Lister started crying, seeing his child for the first time. Tears of joy. Rimmer was conflicted in his feelings. He was glad that Lister finally accepted that he was pregnant but he was still worried about how big the baby was. Then again he wasn't an expert, maybe he was just wrong about what he was seeing. Maybe he was panicking about nothing. That worry started to build when Sam wasn't finding a second baby. Maybe he was wrong. If Lister was fifteen weeks, what were they doing that far back that could possibly end in pregnancy?

"There he is," Sam said finally finding the second baby. "Hiding behind his brother. I'm sure if my friend Janet was doing this she'd be able to locate the baby faster. I'm not an expert with any of this. What I know if from watching Janet and other doctors in my line of work and from what I do know, you look to be nine weeks." She told Lister. "I'd like to do another ultrasound at this time tomorrow."

"So there's something wrong?" Lister asked.

"You're babies are too big for how far along you are meant to be," Sam told him. "It is possible that you've somehow managed to fall pregnant a different way then you assumed and that they are at the correct stage. I'd like you two to think of any other possible time it is for you to have ended up pregnant without sex since you said there is only one time recently. Maybe something scientific or a strange anomaly. Tomorrow we'll confirm if the babies are bigger or not. Since you mentioned it's only been seventeen days if they are the equivalent of nine weeks, we will see change tomorrow if it's some type of ageing anomaly."

Both men nodded, looking devastated at the news.

 

Lister and Rimmer were both lying on their bunks.

"Do you remember what we were doing nine weeks ago?" Lister asked. "I've been trying to remember, but nothing is coming to mind at the moment."

"When we got the mail pod," Rimmer told him. "That was around nine weeks ago, playing Better than Life and our one year in space death day party for me. I think, I'm not sure of the exact dates."

"I highly doubt that an immersive video game got me pregnant," Lister replied. "So we can forget that option. So you think there was something in the mail pod or we did something else while we were drunk and those four erases days besides giving you false memories. I can't sleep, want to go through the mail pod?" Lister asked. "We're not going to get anything from the missing memories."

Rimmer nodded following Lister out.

"I don't want my babies to be sick; I want everything to go well. I want my boys to be healthy." Lister told him.

"Let's hope we find something in the mail pod." Rimmer told him. The books said that the mother had to remain calm. He'd go do the worrying for both of them.

 

The ultrasound the next evening confirmed Sam's theory. A theory she wasn't at all happy to confirm. The mail pod had revealed nothing, but it had at least kept Lister busy reading the mail from home.

"Dave, your twins are growing faster than normal. At this rate they will be here in less than three months time unless I can work out how to slow their growth to normal." Sam told him carefully.

Dave was slightly panicking at this news. Rimmer was trying not to have a panic attack and failing.

"We won't be prepared for a baby in less than three months," Rimmer ranted. "Let alone two babies. Can Lister's body handle the faster rate of growth of two babies? Will they make his stomach explode? What happens if they don't stop ageing fast once they are born? How long will they live for before they die of old age?"

"I'm pretty sure he will not explode, it will put a strain on his body. How much of a strain I don't know. As for the ageing issue and how fast they will age I'm not sure. In a best case scenario, the boys will even out with their ageing. Worst case scenario they will die of old age within weeks of birth," Sam admitted. "But I will do my best to help Lister and his babies."

Both men nodded. They hadn't known Sam for very long, but they believed her when she said that they would help them.

 

Jack and Teal'c had gone exploring together not being able to help with the sciency stuff that Carter and Daniel were looking at, leaving Daniel in the drive room and Sam in the science room. The ship was so large it was easy to get lost. They made sure they had taken rations with them and they went through the mostly disused ship. Dave Lister certainly wasn't a minor goa'uld system lord. Carter had confirmed for goa'uld presence when she'd done all her tests.

"This is mine, that is mine, those are mine, this is mine," they heard someone saying from down the hallway.

They didn't recognise the voice as belonging to Lister, Rimmer or the computer Holly. It didn't sound electronic like the vending machines did.

Jack and Teal'c moved around the corner, looking at the man in a fancy suit prancing down the hallway while he was spraying what they assumed to be cologne on everything. He stopped to play with some wires hanging out from the ceiling above him. He sniffed the air and then stood with his arms in the air.

"I know you're there, come out," the man called. "I can smell you, and you smell strange."

Jack and Teal'c both came out pointing weapons at the man. He was hissing in Teal'c direction.

"I don't know who you are, but you smell wrong. You don't smell like a monkey like he does," Cat said, not at all scared of the gun and the staff. In fact, he seemed to be following the staff with his eyes in a playful way.

"I am a Jaffa," Teal'c replied.

"Like the chocolate?" Cat asked. "Why are you talking to me chocolate?"

"Who are you?" Jack asked.

"I'm Cat," Cat replied. "Oh, that is definitely mine." He sprayed Teal'c staff.

"You are mistaken, this staff is mine," Teal'c replied.

"Not anymore, weird smelling buddy," Cat replied. "This is mine, that is mine." He began singing again, stalking down the hall as if he never came across the Jaffa and the colonel.

"What was that?" Jack asked.

"I am not sure O'Neil, I have not come across anyone like him before," Teal'c replied.

"Let's go back and ask Rimmer and Lister about him. They didn't mention any other people being here." Jack replied.

 

It took two hours for them to get back to the drive room where Rimmer, Carter and Daniel were currently sitting and talking. Lister wasn't anywhere to be found.

"I didn't expect to see you back yet, sir," Sam said to the colonel as he entered the room. "How has your exploring of the ship been going?"

"We came across a strange man," Teal'c told her.

"Was he this tall, dark skin, fancy suit?" Rimmer asked.

Jack nodded.

"That's was just Cat," Rimmer replied.

"You said there are no other humans besides Lister," Jack replied.

"And there aren't, Cat is evolved from Lister's pet cat," Rimmer replied with a shrug. "Used to be a whole lot more, of the cat people that is, but they had some holy war about colours or something unimportant and left the ship leaving behind the sick and the lame."

"He didn't look very lame to me." Jack pointed out.

"But his parents were. Cat is the last cat left on the ship alive," Rimmer replied. "One of the holds is where they lived and evolved. I haven't been down there myself because the holographic system doesn't work in that area, but Lister's been down there before."

Daniel and Sam both perked up. "As soon as I have slowed down Lister's pregnancy I want to study Cat and find out how he differs from humans," Sam told Daniel.

"Think of all the archaeological finds from that hold. They lived and evolved there, it's the find that archaeologists dream of. I can't wait till we can explore." Daniel rambled on. Both scientists were in heaven.

Jack rolled his eyes at the younger members of his team. Daniel was trying to find out what was in the computer system which he could study before he went down in person.

"You kids have fun, Teal'c and I are going on down time," Jack told them.


	3. Three

This was turning out to be one of SG-1's stranger missions. They were stuck with a pregnant man, a cat who looked human and the hologram of a dead person. The spaceship they were on was gigantic, dusty and slowly falling apart. It took weeks to get anywhere.

Jack and Teal'c continued on self-made missions exploring the ship trying to find if anything onboard could help them get home since the planets they'd gone past showed no signs of life, Stargates or past civilisations. They literally spent days away from the living quarters while they were exploring the ship trying to discover how they'd ended up in this strange place. It wasn't uncommon not to see the man named Cat for days on end as SG-1 wandered the ship. When they did see him, he was looking at his reflection in shiny stuff, playing with loose wires or other weird stuff or claiming everything as his. Jack and Teal'c would come across him in the oddest places in the ship, far away from everywhere else.

They didn't even run into any other space ships while flying through space. It was considered a very social day whenever they picked up a distress signal or a beacon which always seemed to belong to a long destroyed pod or ship.

Jack found Rimmer to be annoying and was one of the reasons he was happy to stay away from the living quarters as often as he did. Everything he said and did drove him up the wall and yet Daniel found what he said to be fascinating.

Daniel spent most of his time searching through to computer researching the history of the ship and the Cat civilisation. Sam spent her time with Dave trying to slow down his pregnancy which was progressing too fast for anyone's liking.

"Daniel; Teal'c and I are going out. You alright here or do you want to come this time?" Jack asked the scientist. The archaeologist had been cooped up in this section of the ship for a while now reading through the data collected by the ship.

"I'm all right here. Bring me back something interesting," Daniel said.

"I'll bring you back some nice shiny rocks," Jack replied, knowing the archaeologist and Carter could both spend hours looking at rocks.

"If you're after rocks you will find them in the lower levels. That is where they were mined and stored until we got to where we needed," Rimmer told them. "I don't believe anything has been jettisoned. Maybe if I jettison the rocks, Holly will be able to fly fast. We don't have any way to refine anything that was mined."

"What were you mining before the accident?" Daniel asked.

"It changed from mission to mission depending on what was in demand at the time," Rimmer replied. "I'm sure you will find it in the log somewhere. I won't jettison anything until you get the rock, besides it may unbalance the ship or maybe Holly needs the weight to fly the speed that she does."

"We'll bring you back some rocks." Jack waved, taking his leave for his made up mission. It at least gave him a location to head to this time instead of wandering around aimlessly. He didn't want to listen to Rimmer explaining the history for something that he didn't fully understand.

 

Sam spent every day working on a cure to the twins ageing issue. Taking blood samples every day and performing an ultrasound to confirm the rate of growth of the twins. Working with the vast supplies kept in the storage bays. Daniel continued reading through the ship's log and learning Esperanto.

After eight days, she finally found something that would slow the twins growth to normal without killing them or severely affecting Lister in any way.

"This could still be dangerous," Sam warned him.

Rimmer was reading through the data for what she'd found. She highly doubted he'd be able to understand anything that he was reading. Most of the scientists she worked with didn't understand what she was looking at. A part of her research had already been done when Shifu had been born and had aged from a baby to an eight-year-old in a short span of time. This universe had done vast research into ageing which she had access to and formulas and the ingredients to make those formulas that she never had access to beforehand.

"You're a genius," Rimmer exclaimed. "I would've never known to target the genes that accelerate ageing and targeting them with a mild dose of the anti-ageing serum. It seems to be just enough of a dosage to slow down the ageing process but not enough to actually stop it. If this works, it should settle it back down to normal. We will have to continue monitoring the boys as they grow up to make sure it doesn't wear off. If this works they should be able to live healthy lives."

Sam nodded to Rimmer. He seemed to have understood more of her research then she thought he would.

"How do you get that from that muddle of words? I didn't get anything about genes and anti-ageing from that." Lister replied.

"You don't even know how to read so of course you cannot understand what it says," Rimmer replied.

"I can read," Lister argued back.

"Then read this line?" Rimmer handed over a pamphlet about pregnancy which he'd managed to find on the ship.

Lister took the pamphlet struggling to read back each word. Going through each one slowly and making mistakes with the longer words. He ended up throwing away the page out of frustration. "I can read, you just gave me something really hard."

Sam didn't bother with scolding the two men about their immature behaviour. It seemed to be Rimmer's way of getting Lister to stop worrying about the twins.

"Looks like you get a nice big injection directly to the stomach Listy," Rimmer told him deciding to get the conversation back on track instead of fighting about something that didn't really matter. "You can't do nothing. If you do nothing, they will continue ageing until the die of old age. They will be lucky to make it to a year old with how fast they are ageing in your womb."

"Their ageing may even out," Lister reminded him.

"But it may not," Rimmer retorted. "What would be worse, doing nothing and them dying of old age on the slim chance that everything will correct itself? Or them dying doing our best to help them? May I also remind you that according to Samantha's research there is a slim chance of the twins dying due to this experiment. The most likely outcome is that this will slow things down enough to think of something else. The next most likely outcome is the treatment does nothing. The next in statistics is the outcome that we want that the treatment will work. And all the way on the end of things which is very unlikely to happen is them dying. It's only a very tiny percentage for dying because of the injection a two percent chance. A ninety-five percent chance they will die if you do nothing."

"Do it before I change my mind," Lister told her.

Sam pulled out a long syringe which needed to enter the uterus and into the amniotic fluid so that it would enter both the boy's blood stream. Rimmer turned away but continued talking. He really could not stand the sight of needles, so it was amazing that he'd managed to train the scutters to take blood as well as he had.

"This will also slow down your own ageing as well which is one of the possible explanations for how you became to live so long in the future echo we saw. What were you one hundred and eighty-one? According to the future echo, you deliver the boys safely, that much is guaranteed which means that they had a one hundred percent survival rate from doing this injection thing. So all we need to worry about is if it works, how well."

 "You can turn around now, I'm finished," Sam told Rimmer.

He nodded turning back to Lister.

"We'll do your next scan this time tomorrow to see what effect it had," Sam told him.

Lister nodded. It was an exhausting appointment, after the injection he felt drained. He didn't think that he'd be able to sleep until he knew for certain that the treatment had worked. Rimmer seemed to think that it would work and was back to reading about the stage of pregnancy he was currently at in the last scan and what to expect in the next months in more detail. The past few days he'd been skimming through the details, taking guesses of what he would be at the next scan.

 

Sam had done scans on Dave every day for a week. Each day it was obvious that the children were not growing too fast anymore, the next issue had been if they were ageing at all. Stopping the ageing process altogether was another possible reaction to the injection, one that even Rimmer had realised and left out on purpose because it was a higher possibility than fixing the ageing process.

"It's worked," Sam announced. "They are ageing compared to the scan from last week at a rate they should be growing. You will still have a faster pregnancy than average considering how quickly they have progressed in the first few weeks. I'll be here to monitor you in the meantime to make sure the remaining months are safe."

"I don't know what we would do without you," Rimmer told her. "We would have no means to work out how to save his children ourselves if there ageing didn't even out our only real option would've been to put them into stasis until we did come up with something. If we ever came up with something. Then there is still the issue of how they would be born with your help. I was training the scutters. It wasn't progressing as quickly as I would like."

"You are an angel," Lister told her. "You were sent from the heavens to save my boys."

"I doubt that," Sam replied. "I'm still not sure what sent us here, or how, but there is a scientific reason behind whatever it was. Whatever the scientific reason is, means that I may not have a choice for when my team goes back home."

"Do you really want to help me?" Lister asked. "Wouldn't you prefer to go home?"

"I would love to go home. We all do, but we also would not leave you without a safe way to deliver your boys if I had a choice." Sam replied. "If I discover how my team ended up here and can control the way that I can get home I would go home after those boys were born and you were all safe. Would you come with us if you could? I don't know if that is even possible at the moment, but if it is?"

"I honestly don't know," Lister replied. "I guess I would so that my boys could have a normal life."

"I don't think I can leave the ship," Rimmer told them. "I'm housed by a whole server room. It's not portable."

"I never even considered that. I just assumed that you'd be able to go where I go," Lister replied. "I sometimes forget that you're dead since you're the same as when you were still alive."

 

Rimmer was glad that Lister now knew he was pregnant, it was easier to convince him to stop most of his bad habits from before. There was one bad habit that he hadn't stopped.

 "Do you know how bad cigarettes are for a developing baby?" Rimmer asked. He then proceeded to read several pages out of a book on how it was harmful. Following Lister around the ship to make sure he wasn't going to smoke. With dealing with the fast ageing, Lister's smoking habit had been pushed to the side since they were all stressed.

"I know Rimmer, can you quit telling me. I feel guilty enough about smoking as it is." Lister shouted. "I don't need you to remind me constantly that what I am doing is hurting my babies."

"Then why haven't you stopped?" Rimmer asked him.

"I'm trying!" Lister shouted.

"Then you need to try harder," Rimmer told him.

"Have you ever tried to quit smoking? I want to quit, I know it's not good for me and even worse for the babies," Lister replied. "It stresses me out to much not having a cigarette, I'm sure that isn't safe for the babies either."

 

Rimmer left Lister for his daily checkups with Sam. He knew that Lister wouldn't smoke in her presence and if he tried Sam would stop him. Rimmer went to the drive room and sat at one of the consoles.

"Holly, I would like an inventory of all the cigarettes, cigars and anything else with tobacco and nicotine in them," Rimmer asked the computer.

Holly brought up the inventory.

"That is just what is in the cargo holds and ship stores. It does not account for what is in each person's private rooms." Holly informed him.

"I also want a list of every single person who smokes, whether they were a pack a day type person or a closet smoker." Rimmer requested. "If Lister cannot quit smoking for the health of his children, then I will force him to go cold turkey."

The list appeared on the holo-pad so he could walk around the ship and mark off each room of smokers after he'd checked them. He walked through the hallways till he found one if the scutters.

"El Scutto," He called to the scutter. "We have a job to do, if you do it right, I will give you access to Officer Hanson's room. He was a big Western movie fan, which means he has a lot of John Wayne films and memorabilia. I was saving his room for something big. Lister owes me for this, big time, making me sacrifice my scutter bribe for him." Rimmer shook his head. "Listy better appreciate this. You will only get access once all the cigarettes have been flushed into space, understood El Scutto."

The scutter nodded in agreement since they'd been trying and failing to get into Hanson's room for many years without any luck so far, despite being able to access to nearly every spot on the ship.

Rimmer left the cargo hold cigarettes until after he had collected as many from different rooms as possible. He didn't want Lister to catch on to what he was doing and get a supply from the rooms before he could clear them all. Those he'd be able to hide easier than the ones from the hold. Rimmer knew it was likely that he missed some cigarettes, but at least Lister would not have access to an unlimited supply for one person.

It took him a full month to explore all the different rooms, flushing a few out into the airlock every day. Sam had moved on from curing the boys to helping Lister quit smoking, and managing his stress levels so he hadn't needed to be there constantly to make sure he wasn't smoking since Sam and Daniel were doing that for him. Daniel occasionally came with him while he was going around clearing the cigarettes from the rooms. As far as Lister was concerned Rimmer was showing Daniel around the ship to see something interesting Daniel discovered in the logs.

Rimmer made sure to pester Lister every day with new information about what his body was doing to prepare for the baby and what he should be doing, such as eating right, drinking enough water, getting enough sleep. That he needed to exercise still, but not exercise too much and of course about not smoking.

Finally came the day that he was able to flush the cigarettes from the cargo hold into a nearby sun. Lister wouldn't be able to recover them from total destruction. With smug satisfaction Rimmer sat waiting for the day Lister noticed the cigarettes were gone.

 

"Rimmer, where have you hidden them?" Lister finally snapped and asked one evening three days later.

"Hidden what?" Rimmer asked, playing dumb and innocent. "I'm a hologram, I can't touch anything to hide anything."

"My cigarettes, you've got the scutters to help you hide them. Where did you hide them?" Lister shouted.

"Oh that," Rimmer waved it off. "I decided that I was going to make you quit cold turkey since you don't seem to be able to quit yourself."

"Come on man, I need them. Where have you got them?" Lister asked.

"I'm not telling," Rimmer replied.

"It must be near an airlock," Lister reasoned. "So that you can flush them into space."

Lister went waddling off. It was now obvious by looking at Lister that he was pregnant. He moved like a pregnant woman as well.

Rimmer let Lister go for his fruitless look for the cigarettes which had already been flushed into space but it would keep Lister busy for a few days.

 

Sam looked annoyed at Rimmer. He was wondering what he could've possibly done to her since he hadn't seen her as often since the twins ageing had been sorted and they'd had a fairly good relationship so far.

"What did you do to Dave?" Sam asked him.

"So it's Dave now?" Rimmer asked in a teasing tone. "You have to be more specific. I've done a lot of things to Lister, such as pestering him to eat properly. Giving him updates on what the baby is supposed to be doing at this milestone. His sped up pregnancy threw those out, so I'm still a little bit behind reading those to him."

"He's rather upset with you," Sam told him. "Said that you threw something of his away that was extremely important. Dave is pregnant; I wouldn't recommend throwing any of his items out at the moment."

"Only thing I threw out was his cigarettes, well not just his cigarettes, all the cigarettes. You knew I was doing that." Rimmer replied. "He's been searching for them for days. He's not going to find them either. I flushed them into a sun."

"That is what he is upset about? That's what you threw away. I thought it was his guitar with how upset he was. That's not so bad then. Cold turkey is what he needs, he wasn't quitting by himself. I hope that once he gets through withdrawal, he'll be okay. It's better for his health in the long run."

"I wish I could throw out his guitar, sadly under normal circumstances that would cause him to go into a depression. I don't even want to think about what it would do to him in his current state.

Sam nodded in agreement. She hadn't know Lister long but she would believe that.

 

Jack had tried to stay away from Dave Lister as much as possible. He was an alright guy and they got along well. The issue was with his pregnancy and Jack didn't know what to think about that. They had encountered some weird things over the years since Stargate Command had been formed and this was the first time he'd met a pregnant male and was hoping it was something that he'd never encounter again. Dave acted slightly worse than a pregnant woman with all the mood swings from the hormone imbalance that he had. It was bad enough for a woman who was designed for the hormone imbalance. For a man, it was worse, worse than when Sara had been pregnant with Charlie.

"Hey," he said, drawing Lister's attention. "Everything alright?"

"No, it's not alright!" Lister kicked the wall. "Smegging Rimmer he's such a goit."

Jack nodded, he and Rimmer had a personality clash and the hologram just drove him up the wall whenever he was near him for too long.

"What did he do?" Jack asked and took a seat in the hallway.

Lister slid down the other wall. He wasn't going to be getting up from there by himself with how large he now was.

"Rimmer flushed my cigarettes into space," Lister complained. "Every single last one of them. I tried to quit, I really did. But it's so hard. I want a cigarette so bad."

The other man was sweating and shaking which Jack knew was from the nicotine withdrawal.

"It's going to be alright. It's going to be hard, really hard. Even years after you quit you are still going to want a cigarette. My ex-wife Sara, when she was pregnant with our son, she couldn't quit smoking either. The guilt ate away at her for years. We ended up with a healthy baby boy. I'm not sure if her smoking while pregnant would've done any long term effects to him or not. I quit smoking myself when Sara found out she was pregnant. We were going to quit together, me not smoking did help her. I picked it up again when Charlie died. Only a couple of years ago did I manage to quit again, after I managed to get over the depression I'd fallen into."

"Rimmer saw one of my boys dying in the drive room during a future echo we'd witnessed," Lister told Jack. "At the time I was so relieved to find out the person who died wasn't me. He was about the same age as me now when he dies. Now that they are here," Lister placed his hand on his stomach. "I'm terrified. I must be a horrible person for feeling how I did. It didn't feel real until now. When Rimmer confirmed that I was pregnant, I wished that he was wrong. I was hoping that I would get my babies a different way, a normal way."

"We don't get to choose when we have our children," Jack replied. "We like to think we have control, but we don't. Charlie wasn't planned at all. We wanted to enjoy a few more years of married life before he was born. Then when he was three we started trying for a baby so he wouldn't be an only child and it just never happened. Sara and I didn't have another baby. Never going to happen now."

"Did she leave when your son died?" Lister asked.

"We tried to make it work for a year after Charlie died. Neither one of us able to move on from what happened. He accidentally shot himself with my gun. I never forgave myself for what happened." Jack told him. "You don't need to be hearing about this now. Quitting smoking that is what we're talking about. You like the guitar right, how about every time you feel like smoking you go and distract yourself by playing the guitar."

"Rimmer doesn't like it when I play the guitar," Lister replied.

"You don't need to play in your bedroom. It's a big ship, go play somewhere that won't disturb anyone. Just make sure you tell someone where you've gone otherwise you'll have three very upset babysitters." Jack advised. He stood up and helped Dave to his feet.

"If you need anyone to talk to about craving smokes or getting ready for a baby or just something fictional like the Simpsons I can help," Jack told.

"I'd like that, no offence to Sam and Daniel, I think they're great but I can't talk about sports or motorbikes with them; well I can talk with Sam but she gets too technical with facts," Lister replied. "Rimmer doesn't like any of those things."

"Tell me about this Zero G football you're naming your sons after," Jack asked.

Lister grinned. "Let me show you to the theatre."

"Come on T, we're learning about a futuristic sport," Jack called out to Teal'c when they saw him in the hallways.


	4. Four

Jack watched as the two scientists suited up for their mission.

"You're really going to do an archaeological dig inside a mining space ship's hold?" Jack asked them.

"The ship is over three million years old sir and it's not the first time we've gone on an archaeological dig on a ship," Sam replied.

"Don't you find it fascinating Jack? Not only did the cat survive a radiation leak that killed the crew. They evolved into a species that resembles humans. I've been wanting to search the hold ever since we found out about Cat. I've wanted to see it even more since I found the translated Cat Bible in the computer’s database. They communicate with smell, all the different smells mean different words," Daniel told him excitedly. "I've been trying to learn the language, but with my allergies, it has made it almost impossible to distinguish the different smells. Some of the smells set off my allergies. I learnt those words fairly quickly."

Sam picked up from where Daniel left off, "Think of all the scientific breakthroughs we can make sir. They evolved on this ship, in three million years. That is faster than evolution is meant to take place. We suspect that it's a result of the radiation leak. While the hold they were in didn’t have a high enough level of radiation to kill them, they were still exposed. Their ancestors all lived here and died here without interference. They were able to build two spaceships, leaving only a few remaining behind. Those few are all dead now except the Cat we've already met. It's so exciting."

"I don't think it's fascinating or exciting. You kids have fun with your science and stuff. Teal'c and I will continue searching more of the ship for a way home," Jack told them.

"Can you bring me back more rocks?" Daniel and Sam both asked together.

"You two are so easy to please, all I have to do is pick up any old rock or a weird old do-hicky and you're happy," Jack teased them.

Sam and Daniel both had spent hours examining the rocks he'd given them from the storage hold which had been mined from some asteroid millions of years ago.

"I'm looking forward to this trip, it's the first time I have been able to get out and explore since we got here," Sam replied.

"I'm just glad that you managed to get everything sorted with Dave," Daniel told her. "If everything has gone well, they, the babies that is, should grow at a reasonable rate thanks to you."

"Well I couldn't let two unborn children miss out on life," Sam replied. They all agreed with her on that. Not one of them wanted to allow two children to die of old age.

They followed the directions that Lister gave them to the hold. They would not allow him to come with them despite the fact he wanted to come. The Cat said he would lead them to the hold, then got distracted and had run off elsewhere. Rimmer had tried to go with him, but the holographic projection unit of the ship didn't work in the area they were currently in.

"It's odd, my projection operates on the outside of the ship, as long as I stay close, but doesn't work in certain areas in the ship." Rimmer had told them when he realised he couldn't go any further. "It makes sense that my projection doesn’t work here, Holly cannot see into this area."

"Why do you think there are so many cobwebs and dust?" Sam asked. "I’ve seen no spiders or any other insects."

"Jack and Teal'c reported that other sections of the ship they have been do not have any signs of dust. Looking just as pristine as they were left," Daniel replied. "Maybe it was just a result of this section being lived in?"

They carried around a handheld device which read out different readings that were important, such as radiation levels, oxygen levels and other relevant readings for their safety. Jack and Teal'c had been using a couple as they explored the ship since several areas still needed to be decontaminated as a result of the radiation leak which had killed everyone.

Daniel and Sam were both fascinated as they walked into the hold where the cats had lived for the first time.

"Those are the doughnuts that they worshipped," Daniel prattled off some of the knowledge that he'd learnt from the cat bible.

Knowing that the cats had a Bible, Daniel and Sam went looking for other books. A lot could be learnt from books, even if they couldn't read them, Holly the ship’s computer was able to differentiate between the different smells and translate them.

"I wonder how they get the scent to stay on the page without being affected by other smells," Sam commented, sniffing one of the books pages. Daniel had not been able to pick up the language besides his allergy words but Sam on the other hand was able to pick out the distinct smells and interpret parts of them.

"Carter, Daniel, can you hear me?" The pair heard the distinctive voice of Jack over their radios.

"We can hear you, sir," Sam confirmed.

"We found the cat library," Daniel told Jack over the radio in an excited tone.

"No trouble?" Jack confirmed.

"None at all sir, is everything fine on your end?" Sam enquired.

"Just more rocks, rocks, rocks and empty hallways," Jack replied. "We are still in range of the ship’s computer if anything goes wrong with Lister or other emergencies you need to know about. He’ll tell us and then we will pass on the message if needed."

"Understood sir," Carter replied.

"Any idea when you will be back?" Jack asked them.

Daniel confirmed. "We are working on picking out history books at the moment for translation. We have no idea if we are picking out a history book, a style guide or something just for entertainment. The cats didn't have a method of sorting the books that we understand."

"Understood," Jack replied. "Just make sure you two take breaks and sleep. I expect you see you in three days time if there are no emergencies in the meantime."

"Yes sir," Sam replied.

 

Sam and Daniel had found a somewhere to set up camp for the night.

"This is actually rather relaxing," Sam said as they camped near one of the large portal windows which looked out into the deep reaches of space.

"It is," Daniel sighed.

"What are you looking at?" Sam asked.

"This book is written in Esperanto," Daniel replied. "And in the cat language." He sniffed the page and sneezed as one of the smells set off his allergies.

"Whoever wrote it was learning the language that was written around the rest of the ship. It talks about the Holy Mother Frankenstein," Daniel told her. "It seems that this at least is a history book."

Sam sat next to him looking at the words she couldn't understand.

"Frankenstein was Dave's pet cat?" Sam asked.

Daniel nodded.

"How strange is it to think that someone's pet is the ancestor of a new race," Sam replied.

"Do you think all life originates on Earth?" Daniel asked. "That this is a universe that didn't spread out and colonise the universe? Think about it, the humans around our galaxy all come from Earth originally. Isn't that so fascinating? Here is one that no one left the planet until a much later date. I've been reading through the different archaeological digs of this universe. We share certain events from history, but not everything from history.  At the time of our Stargate program coming into existence and the Space Corp for this universe it completely breaks off altogether."

"I know," Sam replied. "Being able to look up what I was doing in this past is incredible. I was one of the founders of the American branch of the Space Corp."

"I found me as well," Daniel replied. "I wasn't a founding member, but I was on the board that decided to implement Esperanto as the official language. Teaching languages to the officers."

"Can you imagine teaching someone like Jack?" Sam laughed.

Daniel laughed along with her.

"Do you think we were happy?" Daniel asked. "I mean I never met Sha're and everyone thought I was a crackpot for believing in aliens. I was recruited to the Space Corp to because the archaeological community ostracised me.

"I like that we all ended up working together anyway." Sam told him. "Me, you, Jack, Janet, Catherine and George."

"No Teal'c," Daniel sighed.

"No Cassie," Sam sighed. "None of our alien friends."

"The humans that were taken through the Stargate in our universe were put to death in this one. Or at least that is what seems to have happened since the population is still the same as Earth until our now. I think we were happy, the us of this dimension." Daniel told her. "We know each other and became friends. Seeing you and Jack every day is the highlight of my day. And Teal'c of course. Jack's been having a hard time in this dimension. I know Teal'c is feeling pretty useless without anything to do."

Sam rest her head on his shoulder. "Colonel O'Neil is very uncomfortable being around Dave. I can understand why. He's a pregnant man, we haven't come across that before. Not to mention he can't stand Arnold."

"Teal'c just doesn't like have nothing to do. No conflict and he's been unable to help with what we've been doing."

"We should finish up for the night and rest," Sam told him.

"It's so hard to sleep with all the new discoveries waiting for us to find," Daniel replied. He did put his book down and settled into his bedroll.

 

Holly's face appeared on all the screens on the ship. "We seem to be picking up a distress signal from a nearby comet."

"What from?" Rimmer asked.

"It appears to be Dave's bike." The computer replied.

"Kryten, is it him? He's the one that had my bike," Lister asked.

"We left him months ago, he has a bike, he shouldn't be anywhere near the Red Dwarf, unless." Rimmer tapped his chin and turned back to Holly. "We've been going around in circles haven't we! You've got us lost."

"We are not lost. I think. I'm pretty sure we are not lost." Holly replied. "The comet is travelling faster than we are. If we don't do anything about responding to the distress signal within three days the beacon will be out of range of us being able to help."

"Why should we help him? It's not like he is alive, he's just a robot." Rimmer asked.

"Aren't you being a hypocrite considering you’re dead?" Lister asked his bunkmate.

"But I was once human, he's never been human," Rimmer replied.

"It shouldn't matter," Lister argued back. "I'm going to help him."

"Oh no you don't, not in your current state, mister," Rimmer scolded. "Do you know how much effort Sam went to slowing down your pregnancy? I'm not going to let you wreck her hard work because you want to rescue a mechanoid."

"Rimmer, we have to rescue Kryten," Lister argued.

"What are you kids fighting about this time?" Jack asked from behind them.

"We heard the message about a rescue beacon; does that mean there are more people out there?" Sam asked them.

Sam and Daniel had both left the Cat hold early when Jack radioed in about the distress beacon.

"Not a person, a mechanoid," Rimmer replied. "We came across him before; he took Lister's space bike and has crashed it into a comet."

"He's my friend, I'm the one who sent him out there." Lister replied. "It's my fault so I should help him."

"Rimmer’s correct that you shouldn't go out there," Sam replied.

"But if I don't go, who will help him?" Lister asked.

"We could help him." Jack referred to himself and the rest of SG-1. "We’re explorers, and military, Air Force and NASA trained. It will be a cakewalk."

"See, they can help. You don't even need to leave the ship." Rimmer pointed to them.

"I just got so used to it being me who needed to do everything like that since Rimmer cannot go outside of where the holographic projection system works not to mention he can't touch anything and Cat needs a lot of guidance to help," Lister explained to everyone.

"What do you expect from a moggy, even if he is highly evolved?" Rimmer asked. "Unfortunately you will need to fly Blue Midget still." Rimmer wrinkled his nose. "You're the only one here who can fly it and we don't have time to teach them to fly."

"I can fly a spacecraft," Teal'c told them.

"But can you fly a JMC spacecraft?" Rimmer asked. "I can fly a Space Corp spacecraft, but cannot fly a JMC spacecraft."

"Since when can you fly?" Lister asked.

"Since I was seventeen," Rimmer replied. "I learnt how when I was in the Space Cadets. I was rather good at it, one of the few things that I was good at in cadets."

"I don't believe you," Lister replied with a roll of his eyes.

"I have my licence, it's more than you can say." Rimmer pointed out.

"Hey, I don't have a driver’s licence and can still drive a car. You having a space vehicle licence doesn't prove anything." Lister pointed out.

"I'll take you to the cargo bay where Blue Midget is parked. You can see the controls for yourself and see if it is something you can fly." Rimmer told the members of SG-1.

 

 SG-1 were taken to a section of the ship they hadn't been to before. Considering the size of the ship, it wasn't hard at all not to see most of the ship.

 "The blue ships are Blue Midget and the green ships are called Starbug," Lister told them. "I've only just learnt how to fly Starbug recently. Blue Midget is smaller and easier to operate."

"Despite the fact the controls on both ships are the same," Rimmer point out.

"It's because the ships are different sizes. It's just like driving a small car is different to driving a van are different despite the controls being the same," Lister replied.

They all entered one of the the small blue spacecraft.

"Why are they so colourful?" Jack asked. "Most of the ship that I've seen so far are this dull grey colour."

"The officer's quarters are all white," Lister replied. "Not sure about the rest of the ship, it's large, not even I have seen everything yet."

"I think the people who built the ship got sick of the lack of colour," Rimmer replied.

"It's really cramped." Sam pointed out.

"It's not really designed for comfort, nothing around here is," Rimmer replied. "You should try living here for over a decade like I have. You learn very quickly this place is not built for comfort and no matter how much time you still don't get used to it."

"These controls are very different from what I am used to," Teal'c commented.

"I think I would be able to manage," Jack replied. "Like flying an aircraft or a rocket."

"Have you ever flown a rocket, Jack?" Daniel asked.

"Not a real one, but I have done the training," Jack replied. "It was required to be completed before I joined the Stargate program."

"I worked with the science department for NASA for years before I started with the Stargate program," Sam replied. "I've also completed the training since I wasn't just a scientist, unlike a few of the others on my team."

"Take her out Lister," Rimmer instructed. "Give them a crash course in space flight."

 

Lister started up the engine. Holly opened the doors for them and they flew out Red Dwarf.

"That, miladdos, is Red Dwarf," Rimmer told them as they flew past.

SG-1 gazed out the window at the ship they'd been in for the past several weeks.

"I've never seen anything like it before," Daniel commented.

"Indeed, it is nothing like any ship I have seen before." Teal'c agreed.

"The whole ship is red, why would anyone paint an entire ship red?" Jack asked.

"I rather like it," Sam commented. "It's nothing like I would imagine the outside of the ship looking like."

"It was a miscommunication between departments. The ship was supposed to be grey like the interior. Instead, someone read the name, Red Dwarf and thought that was meant to be red. They were already over budget so it stayed red," Rimmer told them. "The ship was built over several decades so the style changes for what is in at the time can be seen better from the outside of the ship then the inside."

"Are you making this up?" Lister asked Rimmer, "Trying to make yourself sound smarter than you really are?"

"No," Rimmer replied. "I worked here fifteen years before the accident. You learn a lot about the ship in those years, whether you want to or not. I served under several Captains during the time, including one who was named Kirk."

"As in Captain Kirk from Star Trek?" O'Neil asked Rimmer.

"She used to get Captain Kirk Star Trek jokes all the time," Rimmer replied.

"Now I know you are making this up," Lister replied.

"You can even ask Holly," Rimmer replied.

"Ask me what?" Holly appeared on the screen.

"What are the names of the Captains that served while Rimmer has worked on Red Dwarf?" Lister asked. He gave Rimmer a look to say that he'd been caught out, Rimmer just returned a smug look that said he was correct.

"Captain Hollister, who you already know since he's been captain since you started. Captain Kelly, he was only captain for a few months. Captain Smith, didn't even last a full week. Captain Arceneaux, Rimmer couldn't say her name but thought he could. Captain Jenkinsen, was around for two years. My favourite was Captain Kirk, she didn't like Captain Kirk jokes because everyone would always make them. She was around the longest, only left Red Dwarf because she retired."

"So Captain Kirk is real?" Lister asked.

"Very real," Holly confirmed. "She was the longest serving Captain that Red Dwarf has had."

 

Sam and Jack picked up the controls with ease, being similar to what they were already used to. Teal'c also picked up the controls with ease but mentioned how different the control were compared to what he was used to. Daniel didn't even try to learn how to control the ship. He didn't know how to fly a ship beforehand and didn't want to learn now.

"I'll learn later when we don't have more pressing matters," Daniel told them.

"They can fly the ship, let's go get Kryten," Lister said, making a move to fly the ship towards Krytens location.

"Not so fast miladdo, we do not have supplies for a rescue mission," Rimmer replied.

"I'd rather not go into a rescue mission blind if we don't have to," Sam told Lister. "The better prepared we are, the more likely we are to have a positive outcome."

"But we are running out of time," Lister complained.

"Dave, we have just under three days," Daniel replied. "It's not like us taking a little longer to rescue him is going to affect him in any way. Do you know how long he was on that comet before the signal was picked up by your ship?"

"No," Lister replied.

"Look, David," Sam put her hand on Lister's shoulder in a comforting way. "We are going to recover your friend. However we aren't going to put all our lives in danger to do so."

They flew Blue Midget back to the Red Dwarf where they were greeted by the cat.

"Hey buddies, you went on a space flight without me?" Cat asked.

"It was just a test flight, overcrowded and would've creased your suit. We're going back out again soon." Rimmer told the cat. "We're going on a space walk when we do go."

"Why didn't you say so, I need to get my suit ready," The cat preened before disappearing somewhere into the ship.

"You're going to let him do a spacewalk?" Jack enquired.

"You haven't even seen his space suit yet," Lister replied. "He made it himself. He's done spacewalks before."

"It looks like something that comes out of one of those old TV shows with how they thought space would be like before space travel became commonplace," Rimmer told them.

 

Several hours later, SG-1 were fully prepared for the mission. Rimmer and Lister were both to remain on Red Dwarf much to Lister's frustrations. They could see him trying to sneak in help if he came with them on Blue Midget. SG-1 and the Cat were all going into space for the rescue mission.

"His space suit is gold," Jack commented. "Are you sure if works?"

"He's used it before. Leaks less than a JMC issued suit." Lister replied. "Are you sure that you don't need me on the rescue mission?" Lister asked for the twentieth time.

"Dave, you just stay here and relax. Get some sleep, enjoy not being poked and prodded," Sam told him. "We've done this type of mission before. We appreciate your offer to help, but we don't need your help." Sam told him.

Lister sighed, knowing he'd been defeated.

Rimmer and Lister watched as Blue Midget left with SG-1 and the Cat.

"Let's go back to our room," Rimmer said to him.

Lister nodded.

 

Rimmer watched as Lister struggled to climb onto the top bunk, he wasn't going to be able to do that for much longer. These quarters were not going to be suitable for raising children in. They'd stayed in them initially because so much around them had changed so fast. In their bedroom, they could pretend they weren't living three million years into the future and all alone. They'd grown used to the situation they were in. It was time to move.

"Do you know how hard it is to get comfortable when pregnant?" Lister asked.

"Not at all, I don't want to ever find out," Rimmer replied. "I'm going to let you rest, you know the drill if you need me."

Lister rolled his eyes. "I'll call Holly, I know. Nothing is going to go wrong while I’m in my bunk trying to sleep."

Rimmer went searching through the officers quarters. He'd always dreamed the day he moved into officers quarters was when he became an officer. He never imaged that he would be moving in because he was living with a pregnant man who needed more room.

The Captain's quarters would've been nice, but he wasn't prepared for single quarters yet. He'd take change one step at a time. He wanted something that still had the bunks like his current room had. Lister on the top, after the children were born. For now, he'd have to put up with using the top bunk, after Lister had recovered he could have the bottom bunk. He didn't like heights, especially after his brothers turned him into a swing when he'd been a boy. Not even his own mother had got him down! His brothers came back later that evening and cut the rope they'd strung him into the tree with, he'd broken his arm in the fall and hadn't liked heights since.

He'd been investigating rooms that hadn't been occupied at the time of the radiation leak. It didn't feel right invading the rooms of the now dead to live in. However, he didn't mind exploring the rooms on a one-off basis. Residing in a room that belong to someone who was now dead just didn't feel right. Also, he didn't want to worry about moving things out of the room to move their own belongings in.

He smiled as he found a suitable bunk room which hadn't been assigned to anyone at the time the accident happened. The room's all along this hallway had all been vacant and directly across the corridor had two beds either side of the room which would be suitable for the boys when they got older. It could also be used by himself and Lister in the meantime since he really didn't like the idea of heights and wasn't even sure if a hologram could use a top bunk. He did try to climb the ladder to find out and discovered that he couldn't use the top bank even if he wanted to. It was a little bit hit and miss with what items on the ship he would go right through and which items he could use as if he'd been alive.

These rooms even had their own separate shower and toilet. Instead of having to use a communal shower down the hall and the toilet in a recess in the wall.

They could block the hallway off so the boys couldn't wander off, and use extra rooms if they needed. It was close to one of the science rooms and medical facilities. The room was close to the lift that went directly to the cargo hold with Starbug and the drive room. It was perfect. He just now needed to tell Lister that plan. He'd been gone a while, he hoped that Lister hadn't done anything stupid while he'd been gone, like trying to follow Blue Midget to rescue Kryten.

 

What Rimmer found wasn't what he'd been expecting. Lister was sitting on the top bunk crying.

"Is there something wrong with the baby?" Rimmer asked, going directly to panic mode.

"No," Lister sobbed. "I can't get out of bed. I ended up having to pee into a bottle. I think I missed the bottle. When did I get too fat that I can't even do simple things like getting in and out of my own bed and peeing?"

"You can't do those things when you are drunk," Rimmer pointed out. "The amount of times I've found you sleeping in my bed because you forgot how to use the ladder, or had to clean up a mess because you missed the toilet, or thought that something else was the toilet." Rimmer shook his head.

"Thanks man, that helps. I don't know why I got so upset." Lister sobbed.

"Considering how out of balance your hormones would be at the moments, it's no surprise that you are sitting here blubbering everywhere. Your testosterone levels have probably gone on strike." Rimmer pointed out. "Your body had no clue what to do with oestrogen since you're not female. I wonder if your sons will be like men from our universe, or if they will be like the men from the other universe? I guess we won't find out till later."

Rimmer instructed Lister on how to climb out of the bed. Where to place his feet, etc. It took them a little while, in the end Lister was out of the bunk without falling.

"Come with me, I have something to show you," Rimmer told him. He lead Lister through the hallways to the new rooms they'd found.

"What is this?" Lister asked.

"I was thinking, even before you got stuck, that it was time to move. Our current rooms are not really suitable for raising children." Rimmer replied. He showed him the room he thought would be good for the boys first. "I was thinking that this here could be the boy's room when they are older. Due to no bunks we can use it for the rest of your pregnancy. Being officers quarters the beds also have the advantage of being bigger, even if only slightly."

Rimmer showed Lister what he planned would eventually be there room and his plans for what they could do, converting this area of the ship into an apartment for them.

"Thanks Rimmer, I can't believe you thought of moving, not even I thought of moving. Why didn't we do that before now? We've had full run of the ship for ages," Lister asked.

"I would not have been able to move in the early days. Look at how my attempt at moving went when I turned on the second copy of myself," Rimmer pointed out.

"Would've been too big a change for back then," Lister agreed. "Let's get moving."

"We can't move everything. What we move has to be child-friendly." Rimmer replied. Making more long lists. Lister just rolled his eyes.

"So Rachael stays behind," Lister teased, Rimmer turning crimson.

 

Jack took a final inventory of everything before he took flight in Blue Midget. It was cramped in the small space ship with the five of them. He wasn't really sure about bringing the man called Cat on a mission with them. He didn't know if he'd be any help or not. Who wore a fancy gold space suit to a mission?

Sam was going over the coordinates and telling them information about what to expect once they arrived at their destination. It would take three hours all up to get from the Red Dwarf to the comet which the robot named Kryten had crashed on. They didn't know what to expect, but it was nice to be leaving the Red Dwarf after so much time cooped up on board. Sure it was a big ship with plenty of room to escape. But it wasn't the same as being able to go fishing on the weekend to get away. Walk amongst the trees while bird watching or looking outside and watching a familiar night sky with the fresh wind on his face. Jack missed outside a lot at the moment. He loved the outside. He hated being inside building all day.

That was one of the most exciting things about his job. He got to go outside, a lot. To places that other people could only dream about visiting. Both on Earth and in space. It's why he stayed in his job for as long as he did and had no interest in advancing to a General or higher. He liked being in the field. He didn't want to be behind a desk. He'd skip that and go straight back to being retired when he couldn't do field work anymore.

The controls of the ship were different to what he was used to, but not hard to handle.

"Sure you don't want to have a go?" Jack asked Daniel, the only one who hadn't practised flying before they left for the mission.

"No thank you," Daniel replied. "I'll wait until another time."

"It's your loss, this is really fun," Jack told them, turning the ship so it was facing upside down to the direction they'd been facing previously. The Cat grinned as they turned. Sam looked like she was trying to hold back a whoop of excitement. Teal'c looked the same as ever, Daniel was pale and looked a bit green around the gills.

"Jack, was that really necessary?" Daniel asked him.

"Just getting some joy into this mundane flight," Jack replied. "How often do we get to fly spacecraft without the Air Force breathing down our necks or goa'uld wanting to hunt us down?" Jack asked the archaeologist.

"That's not the point, Jack," Daniel told him. "Can you please save your joyriding until I'm not in the craft?"

"Kill-joy," Jack teased.

With not much else to do until they arrived at the comet, Cat had wandered off to another part of the ship for a nap. It has been such a long time since it had been just SG-1 to themselves without Lister or Rimmer around. Jack found that he had missed this, just the four of them.

"So kids, what interesting rocks have you found?" Jack asked.

"Why don't you tell us Jack, you're the one that's been exploring the ship more than we have?" Daniel pointed out.

"I found this one that was big and shiny," Jack told him. "Considering I gave it to you, you already know that."

Sam and Daniel started to explain to him exactly what the rock was that he'd brought them. He smiled at how enthusiastic the youngest two members of the team could get over a rock. Teal'c raised an eyebrow at him, but Jack could tell that the silent alien of their group had missed this interaction with the rest of the team.

 

"I can smell something up ahead," Cat announced. Jack jumped out of his skin. He hadn't heard anyone at all. Yet the cat slinked into the room without a sound.

"What do you mean you can smell something up ahead?" Jack asked.

"Out there, it's all cold and frozen and streaky." Cat told him.

"You can smell things outside the ship?" Sam asked him.

"Yes," Cat grinned at them. "You monkeys need to learn how to smell better."

Sam looked gleeful. Jack just knew that when she got back she'd been examining the cat even more than she had been previously. Wanting to learn how he worked and what he could do differently to a human.

Several moments later the comet appeared before the ship.

"Distress beacon located," Sam announced. "Sending you coordinates."

The coordinates appeared on his screen a few moments later. He followed them down to the comet below. In all his years working with the SGC, this was the first time Jack had flown a spacecraft and landed it on a comet.

The members of SG-1 put on the helmets and did a check to make sure the suits weren't leaking. Which they soon discovered they all were. The only one not leaking belonged to the cat who'd made his own suit.

"We'll have to watch our air carefully. Can you all hear me? Ready?" Jack reminded the team. They nodded and he opened the airlock.

They waited for several moments and did several more safety checks. These suits had seen better days, but they'd be able to do what they came to the comet for. They walked over to the crashed bike and robot. It wasn't a pretty sight, about the only thing intact of the robot was his head and a suitcase that contained three more heads and a hand.

They got a box  and started putting all the part in. Teal'c lugging the filled box inside and coming outside with another box which had once carried mineral deposits from the surface of a planet, moon or asteroid to the Red Dwarf. They couldn't tell what parts were the droid and which parts belong to the bike. They were all metal and mixed in together. Remnants of fabric from clothing that the droid wore also were found amongst the rubble. With a scanner, Sam walked around trying to find any traces of anything they'd missed. The Cat had stopped working after the first few items had been picked up, taking more of a supervisor’s role than actually helping with what they were doing.

"That should be all of him," Sam announced. "It's not looking good, I don't think he can be repaired.”

"Let's head back," Jack told his team. "Nothing else to see here."

"I wish we had a flag that we could place here," Sam sighed. "Didn't any of you ever want to put a flag on the moon? Watching the moon landing when I was a kid, it's something that I always wanted to do."

"Yeah," Daniel told her. Knelt down into the dirt and started drawing with his hand. Sam quickly joined them.

"What are they doing?" Cat asked.

"I believe they are marking this comet as theirs," Teal'c replied.

"I should have thought of that," the Cat complained. "I left my special mine scent back home. Can we go and get it and then come back so I can mark this as mine?"

"We cannot," Teal'c replied.

"Then I am staying," Cat told him. "You can bring my scent to me."

"If you stay, your suit will get covered in ice as soon as that sun is out of range," Teal'c pointed out.

"Icicles with this suit," Cat said offended. "I don't think so. If I knew I was going to get icicles I would've worn silver."

When Sam and Daniel were done, they'd drawn the logo for SG-1.

 

They managed to bring back all the pieces that were Kryten, the droid had been severely broken in the accident. It was hard to tell bike from robot.

"I'm sure that I can fix him?" Sam offered sounding more hopeful to Lister then she actually felt. He looked devastated to see his friend in that state and was blaming himself for what happened.

"Thanks for the offer, but I feel like I should be the one that fixes him," Lister replied. "He got into this mess because of me."

"You should let him fix the droid," Rimmer told them before Sam could object. "It will keep him from exploring dangerous things and getting into trouble."

"Does he even know what he's doing?" Daniel enquired.

"No clue," Rimmer replied. "If you are still around when the babies are born, and if the droid isn't fixed by that point, then you can have a go at fixing him."

"I'm sure I won't need help," Lister told him.

"That is actually a good idea. If you do need help with anything, let me know," Sam offered.

Lister nodded.


	5. Five

 Lister spent several days preoccupied with fixing Kryten. It helped him with this nicotine withdrawal and meant that he wasn't doing anything too stupid from boredom. Having Rimmer and the others babysit him regularly was draining for all parties involved.

Sam and Daniel were using the time to explore more of the ship with Jack and Teal'c, while Lister was busy trying to fix Kryten.

"And at this stage the baby should be moving more often," Rimmer was saying to him in the background, giving him progress reports.

"Rimmer, will you shut up, I don't really care," Lister said to the hologram. "Couldn't you have gone with the others to explore the ship?"

"But this is really important; it's happening to your body, you have two lives growing inside of you. Don't you find that exciting and fascinating at all?" Rimmer asked him, bouncing on the balls of his feet with his own excitement. "You need to know what is going on so you are prepared."

"I am prepared; I just don't need you giving me updates every five minutes," Lister huffed. "I'm trying to fix Kryten and I can't do that with you prattling on about nothing."

"It's not nothing," Rimmer sighed. "I'm just worried. There is a lot that can go wrong. If you die, I'll be all alone. I can’t look after the children if they survive. Can you imagine it, two children raised by me instructing scutters? They wouldn't last a week."

"I'm not dying Rimmer." Lister sighed. "Everything is fine, I am fine, the children are fine. You are not going to be alone. What about the Cat and Sam, Daniel, Jack and Teal'c?"

"You know that Cat doesn't like me. I don't get much conversation out of him. SG-1 are not going to be here forever. They have a family and friends they want to return to. If they do go home I cannot go with them and I don't want them taking your children with them."

"Nothing is going to happen to me, so you don't need to worry about. Now I need to pee because they are playing footy with my bladder," Lister grumbled as he slowly got up his hand sitting where the boys were moving. "I'm never going to get Kryten fixed."

"I don't know why we didn't think of it sooner, but why didn't we just get Kryten to move to the botanical gardens instead of him taking out your bike to find a planet with an atmosphere for his garden? He didn't even have any plants with him. How was he supposed to have a garden in the first place without plants? If he did take plants they wouldn't survive without air until he did find a place with to make his garden."

"I feel guilty enough as it is without you reminding me what I should have done instead," Lister said, as Rimmer followed him into the toilet block. "Rimmer, do you mind?"

"Mind what?" Rimmer asked.

"I'm going to pee, I don't need you to follow."

Rimmer replied, "Never stopped you in the past, especially in our old room where the toilet was in the bedroom."

"Yeah, but I wasn't fat and ugly then," Lister told him, looking slightly upset.

"Hate to break it to you Listy, but yes you were. With all those curries that you ate, and that messy hair and...look, you look better now then you did before. You're practically glowing; it's the healthiest you've ever been in your entire life."

"You're just being nice."

"No, I'm not. I'm not a nice person, I'm just being truthful," Rimmer replied.

"Can I pee by myself now?"

"Oh alright, I'll be outside."

"Not even giving me time to pee. What am I an invalid?" Lister asked in an upset tone. "I don't want to do this anymore. I didn't want to do this in the first place."

From the door, Rimmer shouted. "It will be all worth it when you are holding those boys in your arms. Did you see how happy you looked in the future echo with the boys?"

"Was he...I really happy?" Lister asked coming out of the bathroom.

"Just go back to our bunks and look at the photo you took. You are happy." Rimmer told him. "Happier than I've ever seen you before, and that's saying something considering you're a happy drunk."

"You act like a normal person when you're drunk, I actually think I could get along with you when you're drunk." Lister scrunched up his nose.

They headed back to the room. Lister looking at the photo of himself with the boys.

"How many people can say they know when their children will look like before they are born?" Rimmer asked him.

"Look at how upset they are, both boys are screaming." Lister pointed out.

"And look at you, you're smiling. You look so proud of them." Rimmer replied.

Lister sat back down, attending to Kryten, Rimmer in the background reading the pregnancy books to him, and giving him the most random facts.

"You're not going to stop that are you?"

"Nope, someone needs to make sure you know what you are doing, so just listen. There is going to be a test on this later." Rimmer told him.

Lister sighed. "With how you act, it's you who should be the mother and not me. I'd like to see how you would cope in this situation. You'd probably have an anxiety attack every few moments and spend the whole time in the medi-bay."

"Stress would probably kill me if it was me pregnant, so it's a good thing that it's not me and it is you since you are such a naturally relaxed person. Besides I wouldn't be stupid enough to sleep with another version of myself." Rimmer replied.

"You who was attracted to your own cousin?" Lister asked.

"Yes, I don't think I would be able to do it because of that. My attraction to my cousins was a kid’s crush I grew out of. They were the only girls my own age I knew for years." Rimmer replied. "It may sound strange to you, but I don't really like myself, so why would I want to be with myself?"

"So who out of the other universe crew would you sleep with?" Lister asked.

"Holly," Rimmer called out.

"Yes Arn," the computer replied after appearing on the screen.

"Can you get the picture on file for the male crew and put them next to their female counterpart?" Rimmer asked.

On the screen appeared Captain Hollister.

"My god, he looks even worse when he is female." Lister laughed.

"He is a no," Rimmer replied. "I wouldn't even sleep with him to work my way up the ranks. Next," Rimmer called out.

The image changed. Lister continued to fix Kryten while they looked at the pictures of the alternate universe. Wondering how some of them still looked the same, the others could pass as real life brother and sister and then others again didn't even look like the same person.

Lister liked the change of pace since Rimmer wasn't reminding him every second that he was pregnant.

When they finished with the male crew they continued with the female crew.

"I still find McGruder attractive," Rimmer frowned at the image of male Yvonne McGruder or Yves McGruder. "I didn't say that, forget I said that!"

"Well, he does look more feminine than female McGruder," Lister replied. "Or maybe it just means you're gay."

"Lister, I am not gay. I would know if I was gay." Rimmer replied.

"Well, maybe bisexual. There is nothing wrong with that if you are. I know that your family would've drilled it into you that being with the same gender is wrong." Lister replied.

"How would your family react if you'd been gay?" Rimmer asked.

"If they'd still been alive, I think dad would've been a little bit disappointed, but still supported me. We used to go to zero G footy together, and ride bikes and have boys time when he was still alive. My Gran would've invited my boyfriends over and given them the third degree like she did with the first of my girlfriends. Considering I was only twelve at the time, they got the fright of their lives when Gran lectured them. I miss my Gran, if she was still alive, she'd be teasing me so much about my current predicament. She'd be the best great-grandmother the boys would ever see."

"They wouldn't get that from my family." Rimmer sighed. "They judge everyone and hate anyone who's different. That is why I couldn't fit in with my own family. So are you still attracted to Kristopher Kochanski?" Rimmer asked bringing up the image of Kristine next to her male counterpart.

"No," Lister frowned. He actually seemed to be devastated. "I thought that I'd love her no matter when she looked like, here's a male version of her I am not attracted at all. Why am I so upset about that?"

Rimmer sighed before choosing not to answer Lister's question. Lister's hormones were not something Rimmer wanted to think about. He changed the picture to another woman from the crew. "Doctor Newton looks more terrifying as a male than female."

"So glad that neither version of Newton are looking after me at the moment." Lister laughed, his sobbing stopped. They began laughing over the different members of the crew as the compared them.

 

Lister was fixing Kryten still while Daniel, Sam and Rimmer had setup for a game of Risk.

"I can't believe you are actually going to play that with him," Lister told them.

"I find it fun, the hardest thing is finding someone to play with," Daniel said to him.

"You're all a bunch of nerds. How did I end up surrounded by nerds?" Lister asked. "I was one of the cool kids in school. I would beat up some of the nerds. It was a laugh."

"As the person on the receiving end of getting beat up, it's not a laugh being on the receiving end of those beatings," Rimmer said. "One of the boys I went to school with, tried to kill me by making it look like suicide, for a laugh. He's now in prison for murder. I was almost his first victim. Back then no one believed me about what he was like and that I really didn't try to kill myself, not even my own family."

"I went to school with a kid like that as well," Daniel told Rimmer. "Only difference was, the teacher believed me. The worst thing about it, I ended up in foster care with him a year or two later. He blamed me for ruining his life. I got moved on when they realised out past history."

"I have to say that I was a nerd to the girls, but got along with the boys. I'd spend after school with them fixing up cars and riding motorbikes. I just wanted to go as fast as possible. They didn't care that I was a whiz at school when I could make an engine purr," Sam told them. "The girls hated me, would call me all sorts of names, and spread nasty rumours. Dad always said I should've been born a boy."

"Would your name still have been Sam if you were a boy?" Rimmer asked.

"The other day we were going through the slides from the reverse gender universe. Some of the crew have very similar names, or the same name if they had a gender natural name." Lister told Sam and Daniel.

"Neutral not natural," Rimmer corrected.

Sam smiled, "I find it amusing that you still use cassettes, video tapes, slides and many older technologies despite being far into our own future even before the three million years time skip."

 

"How are you feeling today?" Sam asked when she entered the boy's room. A fully complete robot was sitting at the table. Several boxes around the room were still filled with what looked like scrap metal most likely from the bike though Sam was sure that several pieces of Kryten were in the box still.

"At the moment I'm feeling really good," Lister beamed. "I'm about to turn Kryten on."

Rimmer as standing to the side of the room, investigating Lister's work. Not that he could tell if it was actually going to work or not, he wasn't that good with machinery and robotics despite being a technician on a spaceship. Both men were in the wrong careers. Lister should've been a mechanic or an engineer. Rimmer should've been something like an administrator or a librarian. Working with paperwork and filing reports and organising things instead of fixing everything. He'd never been good at the job he was in and due to his personality no one had been interested in hiring him into a stream that he'd actually be good at.

"He's looking good," Sam exclaimed as she walked around the droid. Better work than she'd been expecting.

Lister booted the droid and waited. Sam saw the expression on Lister's face shift as Kryten didn't start moving right away.

"I can take a look at him if you'd like," Sam offered.

"I want to fix him myself," Lister told her in a stubborn mood.

Rimmer looked like he wanted to start an argument with Lister, about what Sam wasn't sure. She sent him a glare hoping he wouldn't start anything.

"In case either of you haven't noticed, he's finished booting," Rimmer pointed to the droid who was now moving, and looked to be doing checks of different body parts.

"Kryten, do you remember who we are? What happened to you?" Lister asked, a look of worry passing his face for a moment.

"Mister Lister sir, you look so well," Kryten complimented him. "I was on the bike and had just found a nice planet to settle on with an atmosphere to grow my plants when out of nowhere I was hit by a comet. It was horrible sir."

"It's Dave," Lister reminded the droid.

"I know who you are Mister Lister, sir," Kryten replied. "As well as Mister Rimmer. I do not however know your friend over here."

"This is Sam Carter," Lister introduced the woman.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Ms Carter ma'am," the droid replied.

"Something must be broken, he was calling us by our first names when we were here last. Still had Mister at the front," Lister told him.

"I think it's an improvement," Rimmer replied. "I didn't like getting called Mister Arnold."

"Do you think that I should turn him off and try to get him back to how he was before?" Lister asked.

"I assure you Mister Lister sir that my self-repair system is now operating sufficiently," Kryten informed him. Giving Lister a list of his damage and the progress of each unit.

"Kryten, do you still like cleaning?" Rimmer asked the droid.

"Yes Mister Rimmer sir, my function is to clean and serve my human masters," Kryten replied.

"Excellent," Rimmer replied happily. "How about gardening?"

"Of course, that is my dream to start a garden on my own small planet," Kryten replied.

"We only thought of this after you left. We have a botanical garden, you are welcome to work in it as much as you like after you've cleaned everything." Rimmer told him.

"Rimmer," Lister turned to him. "He doesn't need to do that. Kryten you can do what you want, you don't need to clean for us."

"It is my job to serve humans, I enjoy cleaning," Kryten replied.

"See," Rimmer pointed to the droid. "He likes it."

"I'm going to have to restart your deprogramming lessons. We'd progressed so far before the accident," Lister complained.

"I like him better like this," Rimmer replied.

"I'm happy you got Kryten work," Sam told Lister remembering why she'd come to his room in the first place. "You've got a medical appointment right now."

"Oh no Mister Lister sir, are you sick?" Kryten asked looking at the man who was his favourite human and not just because he'd fixed him.

"No," Lister replied. "I'm pregnant."

"I don't understand what that is?" Kryten admitted looking between the two humans and the hologram while accessing his databanks.

"It means he's going to have a baby," Rimmer told the droid.

"A baby, you mean a small human?" Kryten asked. "I've never seen a small human before. How exciting. Even more people to look after."

"Well Kryten," Rimmer clapped his hands together. "How about I show you around the ship, we have a garden and lots of cleaning that the scutters aren't doing."

"Cleaning," Kryten perked up. "I tried to clean an asteroid that I landed on and didn't have enough to clean."

"Rimmer, he's only been turned on for five minutes and you're already making him clean," Lister started to argue.

"It's what he's programmed for. Will you go with Samantha for your appointment," Rimmer shooed Lister away.

Kryten happily followed Rimmer through the ship as Rimmer explained the priority areas for cleaning, especially since he and Lister had moved to a different section of the ship since the mechanoid had last stepped for on Red Dwarf. The droid lit up when he saw the state of the botanical gardens.


	6. Six

Lister sighed when he tried to slip his pants on and failed. He'd already been out of his own clothing for several weeks now, wearing larger clothing in his own style that was in the ship’s store. The issue was, he no longer had leather clothing that could fit over his stomach.

"What's wrong? Is something wrong with the babies, I'll go get Sam," Rimmer went straight to panic mode when he'd walked into the room and seen he was upset.

"No Rimmer, it's not that. Everything with the babies is fine," Lister told him with a heavy sigh.

"Then why are you upset?" Rimmer asked, attempting to push back his panic.

"It's really stupid," Lister admitted. "My pants no longer fit, there's no more leather outfits that I can get over this." He indicated to his bulging belly. "Wearing anything else makes me feel like I'm not me anymore."

"I've seen you knitting clothes and blankets for the boys, can't you take the trousers out so they still fit you?" Rimmer asked.

"I can't sew," Lister admitted. "I can only knit. I miss my gran, I used to knit with her in the evenings. She was the best gran ever."

Rimmer looked at the photo of the tough looking lady wearing all leather and a cigar handing out the corner of her mouth covered in tattoos. Frankly Lister's grandmother scared him and he was glad that he'd never met the woman. He couldn't picture her knitting at all or raising a child. Lister loved his grandmother so she'd done a better job with Lister then Rimmer's parents had done with him. Rimmer hated his family.

"Kryten," Rimmer called down the hallway to the droid who was currently vacuuming the floor.

Kryten waddled down the hallway and stood in the doorway of Lister and Rimmer's room.

"Yes Mister Rimmer sir, how can I assist?" Kryten asked.

"Can you take out Lister's pants?" Rimmer asked him. "Lister finds himself no longer able to fit into them."

"Has Mister Lister considered changing his diet and exercising more?" Kryten asked. "No offence Mister Lister sir, you could stand to lose a few pounds."

"Kryten, he's pregnant. It's not healthy for him to lose a few pounds," Rimmer told the mechanoid in a taunting tone. "Pregnant with twins, if anything I'd be happier if he was a little bigger."

"How much bigger do you want me?" Lister asked. "I already can't see my feet or get into a top bunk anymore." Rimmer didn't answer his question.

"Understood, I'll start right away," Kryten replied picking up several of Lister's trousers. He tried to take a jacket but had Lister telling him that he wasn't allowed to alter that one.

 

With Kryten now settled in, Rimmer had started teaching the droid how to fly. Jack had taken Kryten on this particular day since Rimmer had been more concerned with pestering Lister then teaching. The droid had wanted to continue his lessons and Jack wanted a change of scenery. Teal'c had gone out with him.

Sam was now concentrating on working out how to get home while Daniel continued reading books from the translated cat library.

"I never read so many fashion tips in my life," Daniel complained to Sam. The pair had taken over one of the science rooms as their own, spending a lot of time in the room together.

"I never cared much for fashion," Sam told him.

"Me either," Daniel agreed. "The only interesting thing about these fashion books is seeing how the cat history evolved with different styles over time. Some of the styles similar to trends on Earth, others that are completely unique."

"Life form detected in cargo deck B-12," Holly's voice came over the loudspeakers. His image projected onto every screen in the room. "Life form is unidentifiable, maybe someone wants to check it out."

"No idea," Holly then said. "I'm sure it hasn't been around that long, I've only just detected it, so the life form must have only just arrived."

Holly paused. "No Arn, it's not space weevils, I know what the life signature for space weevils is."

It became apparent that Holly was speaking with Dave and Arnold and the two scientists were only hearing one side of the conversation.

 

Lister insisted on coming down to the cargo bay to investigate the life signs with Rimmer, Cat, Sam and Daniel.

"It could be dangerous," Sam pointed out.

"Knowing Holly he is detecting a curry that Lister left in the cargo bay before he got pregnant," Rimmer said. "Holly has become less reliable in the past three million years, it's hard to tell what is a real emergency anymore. For someone like myself who is scared of everything, it makes knowing what to be afraid of and what to be terrified of extremely difficult. The exercise and change of scenery will do him some good."

"You just let us know if you need to rest or feel any discomfort at all," Sam told him in a caring tone.

"It's like you're all my mother. I hate it. I can do things on my own," Lister reminded them.

Rimmer chatted away with Sam and Daniel about much of the ship's history they didn't know and about what the Earth and the colonies were like before they'd ended up trapped in space.

"We didn't get to spend much time around the nicer colonies," Rimmer told them. "Being a mining ship we mostly went between ports of industrial trading area's that were all dirty and grimy. It would've been nice to see more of Calisto, Dion and the other moons in the outer rim. Io was beautiful. If I didn't hate my family so much I think I would've stayed on Io."

"Can someone shut him up?" Cat asked.

"I'm just glad that he's not talking at me," Lister replied. "And not reading all those books of what I should be expecting, it's driving me up the wall."

In no time they arrived on the cargo deck with the life sign. Wandering around with a handheld scanner it didn't take long to find.

"That's disgusting," Rimmer said scrunching up his nose. "How the smeg did that get down here?"

"What is it?" Cat asked, looking equally disgusted.

"Hey, that's one of me socks," Lister said, trying to bend down and pick it up and failing to get anywhere close to his sock. "I haven't seen this one since before I went into stasis. I must have left it down here when I was with Leanne Chambers, you remember her."

Rimmer made a face, he remembered her. "She was that whiny officer who managed stock for the shopping floors. She used to get upset that the stock to fill the non-food and drink vending machines came from the same stock supply as the stores and would sometimes hold up orders to restock the vending machines."

"I just remembered you're the reason things didn't work out with Leanne and I," Lister said. "She'd complain about you all the time. At first it was cute and we'd complain together but after a while it got old. I didn't want to think about you when I was on a date. I think she secretly liked you. I think she used to hold your orders just so she could see you."

"I didn't like her so was never going to happen," Rimmer replied.

"You didn't like McGruder and that still happened," Lister pointed out.

"I don't want to talk about what happened between myself and Miss McGruder," Rimmer replied defensively.

Lister had given up on trying to pick up his old sock.

"David, do you mind if I take this to the science lab?" Sam asked, interrupting the two men in their discussion about old girlfriends. "I want to know why this detects as a new life form."

"Sure," Lister replied. It wasn't like he really cared about an old sock.

 

"Did you kids do anything interesting today?" Jack asked his two teammates after returning from Kryten's flying lessons.

"Holly detected a life sign so we checked it out," Daniel replied.

"And?" Jack prompted.

"It turned out to be one of Lister's old socks," Sam replied. "It's really fascinating the reading's we are getting from the sock."

Sam showed Jack slides with the new micro-organisms which called Dave Lister's sock home. He smiled at how high-spirited the two scientists had reminded despite not knowing if they would ever return home again.

 

Jack looked around seeing Lister lounging on the bottom bunk while the cat person was on his bunk. The pair were watching TV and talking about the Flintstones.

"Where's Rimmer?" he asked.

"Today's the day of Kryten’s flight exam. They're out in Starbug," Lister replied. "Come to think of it, they should already be back. Knowing Rimmer he is giving Kryten a lecture about something stupid.”

"Holly!" Lister called out after a moment, getting no reply from the ship’s computer.

He got up and started wandering towards the drive room. It took a while for Lister to move anywhere. Once he was in the drive room he flicked through the console.

"That's odd, they've gone out of range, I can’t detect them anywhere," Lister told them. "We'll give them a couple of hours. If they have not returned by then we will go out and look for them. I'm actually enjoying the quiet without Rimmer and Kryten both fussing over me."

"Should you be going out and looking for them?" Jack asked.

Lister was the equivalent of seven months pregnant and it being twins, he looked like he was ready to pop any moment.

"I'll be fine, I haven't gone out in ages. Not since I showed you how to drive when you arrived in this timeline," Lister replied. "I'm going stir crazy."

 

By that night it was obvious that Rimmer and Kryten were not coming back.

"Teal'c, the Cat and I will go out and look for them. You two stay here with Lister," Jack told the two scientists.

"Yes sir," Carter replied. Lister complained about getting left behind and that he wasn't an invalid.

"I can do everything that a healthy human can do," Lister complained.

"You cannot reach your toes anymore," Daniel told him.

"Couldn't you have fixed the speed my boys were growing after they had been born, or waited just that little longer. I wouldn't be pregnant right now if you had, and I'd be able to go out there and look for them." Lister told her.

"I wasn't even sure it was going to work," Sam told him. "Why don't we do something to help you keep your mind off things?"

"Like what? There is nothing to do. We've told stories, watched TV. I want to go out into space and look for my friends," Lister told them. "I don't want to be pregnant anymore, can't the twins arrive now, and then we'd be out in space and looking."

"You would be in recovery still," Sam told him. "Giving birth by caesarian has a longer recovery time than a natural birth without complications."

"Not to mentions to risk to the twins from being born two months preemie," Daniel told him.

"How about some video games? I've done some research on which ones you can play in the VR that will not replicate your pregnancy in the game," Sam replied.

"I have no idea why nearly every single video game replicates the person physically," Daniel told her. "Isn't the point of video games to escape reality, not to insert yourself into a different reality."

Sam shrugged. "Maybe it's because some people want to live out their fantasies."

"That sounds like a good idea." Lister nodded. They walked towards the games room. Lister took a seat that looked the most comfortable while Sam connected them up.

"Those helmets look horrible." Daniel shuddered as the thin rods poked themselves into Lister's head.

Sam loaded up the game and put on a headset. "How are you feeling?"

Daniel walked over to the console seeing a video of Lister standing in a grassy field.

"Great," Lister replied, looking down at his stomach. "It's like I'm not even pregnant, I could touch my toes, I can move, I don't feel l like a whale."

"I'm going to connect you up to the medical equipment so I can monitor you and the children and pull you out if anything goes wrong," Sam told him.

"What can possibly go wrong?" Lister enquired. "It feels wonderful in here and I can get out anytime I want."

"It's more of a case of if you go into labour. You're at the equivalent of seven months. Those boys of your can come at any time. The later the better, but I'd like to be prepared if it is earlier." Sam told him.

After Sam was satisfied everything was hooked up, she entered virtual reality. Daniel staying outside to keep watch. The archaeologist also didn't find the current game Lister was playing that appealing and was looking forward to trying the VR later with a more historical game.

 

 "Can we give up yet?" Cat asked Jack. "It's been three weeks already. We are never going to find them. Then we can go back to our regular everyday lives and move on. It's been wonderful without them both."

"I don't leave anyone behind if it can be helped," Jack replied to the cat.

"Even if they are dead and a robot and both really really annoying?" Cat asked.

"Well normally I wouldn't be looking for a dead man and a robot, this is a special case. They have so much more personality than normal," Jack replied.

"In their case, I wouldn't say that was a good thing," Cat replied.

"O'Neil, in all my years in space, I have never seen anything like that." Teal'c pointed ahead of them.

"What is it?" Jack asked.

"It's an orange swirly thing," Cat replied.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Let's return to the ship and report our findings to Carter. She may know what it is; it's possibly where they have disappeared to."

 

Sam, Daniel and Lister were in Lister's room, playing cards when he returned. The Cat had gone to preen himself and Teal'c were restocking the small ship.

"We found an orange swirly thing in space," Jack told her. "Any idea what it is?"

"Well it could be a number of things sir, but I would have to see it in person to work out what it was for certain," Sam replied.

"It's a time tunnel," Lister told him. "They are meant to go through to different points in time periods and in space. They cover them when learning for the driver's exams. I only know that because Rimmer had been going on about all the different warning signals with Kryten when he hasn't been pestering me about the baby. They're safe to go through, but you do have a chance of getting stuck on the other side if the time tunnel closes."

"Is it possible that Kryten and Rimmer are on the other side of the time tunnel?" Jack asked.

Lister nodded.

"Guess we're going through," Jack replied.

"Jack, in this instance, I believe that it is best we all go through together," Sam told him. "We don't want to be separated in time and space more than we already are."

Jack nodded and agreed. "We're going to need to take Starbug since there are more of us."

 

"Daniel, any idea what language they are speaking?" Jack asked as they walked through town on the planet that had been on the other side of the time tunnel.

"Yes, it's English," Daniel replied.

"Doesn't sound like any English I have ever heard before," Jack told him.

"That's because they are speaking backwards," Daniel replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"So we are not in Bulgaria and they aren't speaking Bulgarian. My guess was completely wrong." Lister told him.

"Daniel, can you speak backwards?" Jack asked.

"Yes, when I was at university my linguistics class used to talk backwards and pig Latin and other made up languages on a regular basis," Daniel replied. "It's actually harder than it looks because you are not just saying one word backwards, you say your whole sentence backwards. It's way harder than it sounds."

"So you learnt how to speak English backwards but you never bothered with Esperanto," Jack asked him. "Why?"

"Because it was interesting and fun learning to speak backwards. I knew that learning Esperanto wouldn't be hard to learn if I needed it, which was correct, it didn't take me long to learn," Daniel replied.

"Dave, let me know if you aren't feeling well," Sam told him.

Lister rolled his eyes. At first having Sam fussing over him instead of Rimmer had been entertaining, but now it was driving him up the wall more than Rimmer.

"I will, can we just enjoy being on Earth again? Even if it is a weird backwards one." Lister said to the group.

"Don't you feel strange going out in public while pregnant?" Sam asked. "It's not every day you come across a pregnant man."

"This far along they are not even going to guess I am a man. If they do they will assume that I was born a woman," Lister told them. "I'm just happy to be outside with a real sky and grass and people, even if they are speaking backwards."

Daniel asked around until he found that Kryten and Rimmer were both currently performing in a pub.

They watched Rimmer and Kryten perform before pulling them aside once they were finished with their show.

Rimmer and Kryten filled them in on what had been happening on the Backwards Earth for the past three weeks.

"I really like it here, I am thinking of staying," Rimmer told Lister. "Backwards is the right way to live. You start life getting unburied or cremated. Have a funeral, come back to life, living a full life until you re-enter your mother’s womb and she enters her mother and so on. No worrying about dying, you keep getting younger. It's perfect."

"I can't stay here. I'm twenty-five, in ten years I’ll be fifteen and have to go through puberty again, backwards. Then in just over twenty-five years I'll be someone's sperm. I don't want that and the biggest thing, my boys will not get to live." Lister started to get upset.

They had whispers and stares from the people around them, neither man paying any attention.

"Do you really never want to see your sons?" Lister asked him.

"I've said this before Lister, I am not their father or mother. Yes, I want to see them, live long and healthy lives. For the first time in my life I am successful, I am doing well at something." Rimmer told him. "I've never had that before, you really want me to give this up."

"I don't want to do this alone, I don't think I can do this. Sam, Daniel, Jack and Teal'c aren't going to be around forever, they're going to go back home, they have lives to return to. If you and Kryten both stay here then it will just be me and the Cat and I'll be lonely when Cat is off doing his own thing and how am I going to raise those boys without you lecturing to me from a book. I'm scared - no terrified and I don't think I have been so terrified in my life. Every moment I stay here is making my pregnancy last longer."

"That’s a good thing, as it is you will still be pregnant less than a typical woman," Rimmer pointed out. "Oh alright I'll come home."

Lister really did start crying then.

"Kryten, what were they talking about?" Rimmer asked on the way back to the ship. They kept looking at Lister and I and whispering, even before we started talking.

“They were talking about your lover's tiff, sir" Kryten replied.

"Lovers tiff, me and him?" Rimmer stuttered.

"Yes sir, as it appears to them, you had a fight with your pregnant wife and left her to be an entertainer," Kryten told him.

"This place is starting to give me a headache." Rimmer sighed.

"I wonder if I can find the me of this time period. What were you doing in ‘93?" Daniel asked his team, knowing that Rimmer and Lister were not born yet.

Rimmer perked up. "I really want to see what you are all doing before we head home."

"I have mixed feelings, on one hand I want to see, on the other hand I want to go home and get these children out of me. I'm sick of being pregnant and just want to go back home."

"Were you not the one who wanted to leave the ship, David Lister?" Teal'c asked.

"It's just hormones, T," Jack told his friend. Teal'c raised his eyebrow, already aware of this.

"Don't worry Dave, it won't take too long," Sam told him.

"I have to admit that I do want to see what you were all doing," Dave replied.

"I wouldn't mind seeing my ancestors, see if they were really as great as my parents claimed," Rimmer replied. "Isn't it funny thinking about it, since everything runs backwards in this time we've already existed?"

"And I still can’t find out where I came from," Lister complained. "Because they erase their history in this dimension."

"I'd have a weird profession," Daniel laughed. "I'm un-discovering things."

"As am I," Sam agreed.

"And I'm bringing people back from the dead," O'Neil told them cheerfully. "At least that's how I'm assuming war works in this backwards world."

 

Jack was the easiest to find, he was living at home with his wife and son. They watched from a distance as the Jack of the backwards universe played baseball in the backyard with his son. His wife Sara was hanging out the dry washing, a smile plastered on her face as she watched her boys.

"Time to go," Jack told them.

"Are you sure you don't want to watch for longer?" Sam asked.

"I'm happy to know that he's alive and well. This is all I need to see." Jack told her, a sad smile plastered his face as he glanced over to his younger self.

 

Daniel was the next one they found, on a dig in Egypt. The advantage of having a space craft was easily travelling around the whole planet by leaving the atmosphere, flying around the globe and landing. It was a rather quick journey.

The young archaeologist was chatting with a young woman in the sand.

"Daniel?" Jack raised his eyebrows as he asked about the lovely young lady who was flirting with the Daniel.

"Her name is Sarah," Daniel told them. "We dated for a while."

"You had a girlfriend before Sha're?" Jack asked him.

"I've had a few Jack, I may be socially awkward but I'm not that socially awkward," Daniel told him. "She broke up with me not liking my theories on aliens. Thought I was a bit too unconventional for an archaeologist." Daniel told him. "It's interesting to see that my life is still the same as back on our Earth at this point."

"If that's the case, I should already be working for the SGC," Sam told them. So far they'd been unable to locate Sam in the computer system.

"I don't think so," Rimmer told them. "I believe that you'll find that this is a backwards universe for our own dimension and not your own. I believe that this version of you would be with the Space Corp."

"How about we go to my house and have a look," Sam suggested when it was time to leave Daniel.

 

Sam's house had a different family living in it. She really was not living near the Mountain complex of the SGC. They visited the around the Pentagon next. After a little bit more searching they finally found where she was living.

"Nice, before the Space Corp developed their own uniforms," Rimmer commented, happy to see early military history.

"You're a bit of rebel aren't you," Lister mentioned when the next time Sam left the house she wasn't wearing her uniform. Instead, she was wearing leather and was getting a motorbike out of her shed to go for a ride.

"Just a bit," Sam agreed.

"You're my type dressed like that," Lister told her a grin plastering his face.

"You told me I was your type the first day we met. It's still not going to happen," Sam said bluntly.

"So last on the list is my family and then we can go back to the Red Dwarf." Rimmer rubbed his hands together.

"What about Dave's family?" Kristine asked.

"I don't know my family history," Lister admitted. "I wouldn't even know where to begin looking."

 

Their small group returned back to England. Rimmer’s family was not hard to find, they had a large estate in the country. Exactly where Rimmer said his family home was.

"The estate is still in the family," Rimmer told them. "My grandmother lived here until she passed away and then it went to my Uncle Frank. Father was upset that Uncle Frank got the estate on Earth despite the fact he is the oldest.

"You're just a chip off the block aren't you?" Lister said looking back at a couple of Rimmer's family members.

It was easy to tell that Rimmer was related with their curled red hair, brighter then Rimmer’s own. They were dressed in military clothing having always been a military family. They were mostly snobbish and acted like they were better than everyone else.

"You've seen, can we go now?" Lister asked.

"We can go," Rimmer nodded. "I've really missed a lot in the past three weeks haven't I?" He glanced back down to Lister's stomach which had grown since he'd seen him last.

"It was the longest three weeks of my life," Lister complained.

"Shortest three weeks for me," Rimmer said happily. "I need that holiday."

 

Rimmer and Lister were both asleep in their room. The members of SG-1 were in the drive room for a debriefing.

"Sir, I think that time hole may be how we got here, and how we get home again," Carter told him. "Well not that time hole but a different time hole."

"I don't remember coming across swirly orange things," Jack told her.

"But it is possible that the Stargate intercepted with a time hole when we were going through it, instead of coming out the other end of the Stargate, we came out in the dimension connecting to the time hole," Sam explained. "If we can find the time hole we came through, we should be able to get home. We will probably have to use one of their crafts to travel since it's possible to come out it open space."

"How does that help us if we end up in our own time and dimensions, but nowhere near a planet with a Stargate?"

"It's a risk I am willing to take sir, in a worst case scenario if we are nowhere near a Stargate we should be able to go through to time hole to return to this dimension," Sam replied. "I was able to examine the structure of the time hole and see if we can possibly locate a smaller one on the ship."

"Jack, if we do find a time hole that leads home, I don't want to leave until Dave's children are delivered and he's recovered enough to survive on his own."

"I didn't think that you two would, it’d always be in the back of your minds what had happened if we left him," Jack agreed. "We're a team and when we leave it will be all four of us."

"Once I have built a portable scanner, we should be able to search the ship and find out if there are any time holes on the ship. If there are, I suspect that it would be near where we came into the dimension," Sam told the team.

"You get on that," Jack exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "T and I will stop searching the ship until it's done. We don't need to accidently walk through any time holes.

"Right away sir," Sam agreed.


	7. Seven

"Carter, do you see any signs of black holes?" Jack asked his second in charge. He was using her handheld machine which detected time holes along with other things and it wasn't going off. The first thing he'd done was walk every ten floors and found nothing.

"No sir, but like I've already mentioned before I don't have access to our own equipment and it's better to be on the side of precaution," Sam replied.

"Should we really be splitting up?" Daniel asked.

"The ships are all small Daniel, they are not designed for long trips with more than a few people. Going to save Kryten in one was bad enough, this will be even longer than that" Jack replied. "I've been over them myself. It's like being in a sardine tin. T and I will go in one ship, T's had extensive flight training from the robot and Rimmer. The robot and the cat will be on another ship. On the largest ship will be you two, Rimmer and Lister," Jack instructed his crew. "Will you two really be alright with those two for twelve hours? Not even the robot wanted to go with Rimmer."

"I have no problem with either of them. In fact, we plan to play Risk during our trip." Daniel replied. "Well Arnold, Sam and I plan to play Risk. Dave has no interest in Risk."

"What is Risk?" Teal'c asked.

"It's a game that geeks and nerds play," Jack informed his alien friend. "We don't have time for those two to explain, and I don't really know what it is myself. You're both ready to leave?"

"Yes sir, I have the equipment to monitor Dave in case anything goes wrong while we are away. Medical equipment in the event of an emergency, tools for the same reason and supplies for the four of us to last several days if something does go wrong," Carter replied. "We also have our radios."

Jack nodded. "Alright team, head out. You kids stay safe."

Daniel and Sam nodded. SG-1 split up, Daniel and Sam heading to Starbug 1 and Jack and Teal'c heading to Blue Midget 4. Kryten and Cat were both leaving Starbug as Sam and Daniel arrived.

 

"Stop going through my things, you should be checking you have enough supplies, do you know how close to having the babies you are?" Rimmer scolded Lister.

"Relax, I'm sure we have everything, besides we won't be long gone. Just until the black holes are gone. It's not like I'm going to give birth on Starbug," Lister replied with a shrug.

"That is a whole twelve hours David Lister, twelve hours if the black holes doesn't destroy the ship or kill us. Twelve hours, anything can happen in twelve hours."

"Rimmer, you have supplies for a month, stop being such a mother hen, everything is going to be fine," Lister said. "Not to mention how many supplies Daniel and Sam also have. You're a bunch of over-prepared twats."

"Someone needs to be, you're the most unprepared person I know, you're not even ready for this baby yet, your days away from becoming a parent," Rimmer lectured again. "You're twenty-six years old, you should be old enough and mature enough to have a child, but you're still mentally a child yourself, it's like watching a teen mother trying to get ready for their first child on prom night in the toilet block before a school dance."

Lister rolled his eyes. "I'm still twenty-five. Everything is going to be fine,"

"No it's not, you're too carefree," Rimmer complained. "You said that the baby won't be born here, but that is a real possibility. Babies aren't predictable, it might be born on Starbug."

"No they won't. I'm not due for a few more days. You're a hypochondriac who panics about the smallest things constantly," Lister replied. "Look where that got you, all you're panicking and over-preparing and who's the one that is still alive?"

"You could have killed the whole crew when you brought the cat on board. Do you know what type of diseases they have? We have quarantine rules for a reason, to keep everyone safe, but no you think you are above the rules."

"At least I didn't actually kill the crew with how incompetent I am. Everyone is dead because of you. Chen, Petersen, Selby and all my mates. Kristine, the girl that I love and will never be able to tell. The kitchen staff, the officers, the miners, the diesel deck staff, the doctors and scientists, the Captain, even that little old lady from supplies. Everyone is dead including Yvonne McGruder who I know you still have a thing for!" Lister yelled back.

"Do you think that I don't know that? I have to live...exist with the guilt that I killed everyone. I try not to think about it, but the reminders are everywhere. I'm reminded every time I walk down the hallway, every time I see your face, every time I look in the mirror and she the H on my forehead." Rimmer pointed to his forehead. "I didn't know that everyone would die by me not doing my job properly. If I had known that was a possibility I would've handed the job to someone else, then everyone would still be alive, I would still be alive. You would've only been in stasis for only months instead of three million years."

"I'm sorry are we interrupting?" Daniel looked startled at the fighting pair.

Rimmer walked off, through the wall into the water closet. He wanted to be alone and couldn't handle being around the others right now. It was moments like these he was tempted to ask Holly to turn him off. When existing was painful, but his self-preservation prevented him from asking for what would be a second death.

"Rimmer's an overprotective twat." Lister waddled over to the seat and sat down.

"You accused him of killing the crew," Sam mentioned.

"Well, he did. It was an accident, he had one job that day and he couldn't do it properly. But he can hardly ever do anything properly and everyone knew that. There used to be a saying on the ship about giving the worst jobs to Rimmer because he would never say no because he wanted to prove himself," Lister replied. "I didn't realise he felt so guilty about the accident." Lister started to cry. "I hate being pregnant. I got so angry just because he has over a month's worth of supplies. Now I can't stop crying."

"Everything is going to be fine," Sam patted his shoulder. "It's time to leave now."

Lister nodded, staying seated while Sam and Daniel did a final check before Sam flew the ship out. She'd also taken extra lessons in flying after Kryten was rescued and fixed. Once they were a safe distance from the location of the predicted black holes, Sam put the ship into autopilot.

 

Sam walked to the bathroom door.

"Are you alright in there Arnold?" She called out.

"Go away, I want to be alone!" He yelled back.

"If you need to talk, I'll listen," Sam replied.

"I don't need to talk to you," Rimmer insisted. "The one I need to talk to is Lister but he doesn't want to listen to me."

Sam looked back when she heard Lister waddling over and Daniel close behind him, but still nearby the drive room to keep an eye on things.

"Rimmer, I'm sorry for what I said. I'll listen to what you have to say," Lister called through the wall.

Rimmer walked through the wall. "I'm sorry as well. What I said was out of line. Can we go to the drive room and talk in private?"

Sam and Daniel both shared a smile and left the two to resolve their issues in private.

 

"What was that?" Sam yelled as Starbug was knocked off course.

Lister and Rimmer had only been gone for a few moments and hadn't even had a chance to talk yet. Daniel falling to a heap on the floor. Lister was sitting in the chair trying to pull Starbug back on course, away from the large ice planet they were racing towards them.

It only took several moments for Starbug to go crashing into the snow on the planet below them. They could see that Starbug was buried in snow.

"Large fireball came out of nowhere and hit us," Rimmer squeaked out.

"Is everyone alright?" Daniel asked them. "Sam?"

"Just a minor bump, I'll be fine," Sam assured her friend. "How are you?"

"I broke my glasses, and I hit my head rather hard. At the worst I may have a concussion," Daniel replied.

"Well I'm fine, not even a scratch," Dave announced. He stood up from his seat before groaning in pain and collapsing to his knees.

"What's wrong?" Rimmer hovered. "Are the babies alright?" The hologram was hyperventilating despite the fact he didn't need to breathe. His previous fight with Lister seemed to be forgotten for now.

"It's just my back, but I'm fine now." Lister stood back up with help from Sam and Daniel.

"I want to connect you up to the machines to check everything," Sam told Dave.

He waddled over to the seat at the back of Starbug while Sam and Daniel both organised the messed up supplies, separating the medical supplies out.

"It doesn't appear to have been damaged in the crash." Sam examined the equipment. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine, my back hurt again for a few moments, but has stopped again. I must have pinched a nerve," Dave replied with a shrug, not at all concerned.

Sam and Daniel shared a look.

"Dave, anytime you feel that pain I want you to tell Arnold. Arnold, can you keep track of the time?" Sam asked.

Rimmer paled at the suggestion and nodded. He had read all the books involving pregnancy and knew exactly what was currently going on. A holographic notepad and pen appearing in his hands. The only one that seemed clueless about what was going on was Dave.

Sam took a deep breath before taking Dave's temperature, heart rate and blood pressure. He was connected up to a machine that would report the babies' heart rates.

"Back hurt again," Dave told them. Arnold writing it down. "Do I really need to tell someone every time?"

Sam wrote down a heap of notes. "Yes. Everything seems fine for now with you and the babies. I need to check the status of the ship and see if I can get everything going again. Daniel, can you take over recording times for now. Arnold, can you show me where everything is."

Daniel had a way with people and Sam knew that he would be able to keep Dave calm if anything happened while she was outside.

Rimmer nodded.

 

From the cockpit they couldn't get the ship to turn back on. "We're going to need to leave the ship to check the engines. We have a breathable atmosphere. It's cold, so can only go out for a short while."

"Since the ship's power is out, I'm currently running on backup power which has reduced functionality. I cannot be projected on the outside of the ship by the ship's systems until the power is back on. If we had a projection unit I'd be able to leave, I cannot leave the ship without a projection unit. The projection unit is rather large and clunky to cart around, and it's on Blue Midget currently." Rimmer told her.

Sam nodded. She called Daniel over. "How far apart?" Sam asked.

"Every seven minutes," Daniel replied. "Hasn't changed yet. He hasn't realised what those pains are or that they are not happening randomly."

"The longer it stays that way the better. He needs to remain calm," Sam said.

"Arnold, can you take over the timing again? Daniel, I need your help outside the ship," Sam said to the boys.

 

The two scientists of SG-1 left the ship, finding it partially buried in snow. A snowstorm was blowing, covering the ship even more.

"This is no good," Daniel sighed.

"We've been in worse situations before," Sam reminded him.

"We've never had to deliver a baby via caesarian before." Daniel reminded her. "Not to mention we have no medical facilities, very little medical training, no power and it's in the middle of a snow storm. The only good thing is my allergies have cleared up."

"Hopefully Jack and Teal'c find us before then." Sam sighed as they got to work on attempting to dig Starbug out of the snow.

"We still have nine hours till we are meant to meet up with them. They won't know that we've run into problems till then," Daniel pointed out.

"I know." Sam sighed again. "Until then we do our best to help ourselves. We've been in worse situations, we'll manage."

 

"Any luck?" Rimmer asked the scientist when they returned.

"None, with freeing us she's buried good," Sam replied. "I did find the circuit responsible for power, I repaired the circuit and we have uncovered the solar panels for now. I am so grateful for fuses, boards and wires. So much easier to fix then the crystal systems of most the alien ships we've come across. Considering the snowstorm outside it won't take long to cover them again and they won't be getting much sunlight. I'm going to try and turn her on. Hopefully we don't have any other power issues I'm not aware of."

Rimmer left Daniel with Dave.

"No change with Dave, still seven minutes apart," Rimmer told her. "He still doesn't have a clue he's gone into labour."

Sam nodded. Rimmer instructed her on how to start up the ship. The power flickered on, the heating system kicked in, but they couldn't move the ship, she was stuck in the ice.

"Daniel and I need rest after going outside before we do anything," Sam told Rimmer. "Those babies are going to be born on the ship. I don't feel comfortable with waiting now that he is in labour."

Rimmer was pale in the face but nodded. Sam found it fascinating that despite not having blood, his projection image acted just like he did. He really was just like a living person, it was hard to remember that he was just a holographic representation, a digital ghost.

 

"Dave, how about you move to the drive room. I'm sure the chair will be more comfortable in there. Call out if you need anything," Sam instructed him. They'd waited until his last lot of pain and helped him move to the drive room. "You just rest; you and the baby need it at the moment."

Lister nodded and dug into a curry that had been prepared earlier. Once Lister was occupied Sam and Daniel got to work cleaning up the supplies, setting up a makeshift theatre and sterilising everything.

"Maybe we should become real doctors, Doctor Carter." Daniel teased. "This'll make the second baby we have delivered together."

"We are real doctors, just not medical doctors. I can see what you mean. It would be nice to have further medical training, especially when we're on missions," Sam agreed.

"Arnold, you're in charge of reading Dave's vitals. Do you think you can handle that?" Sam asked.

Rimmer nodded looking rather nervous. "I'm going to check on Lister."

Sam and Daniel nodded. The two scientists continued to revise what was happening.

Rimmer had his projection to the lowest setting before he walked through the wall. Observing Dave unnoticed. That was one of the advantages of being a hologram, he didn't need to use doors, and was silent when he needed to be and could be almost invisible.

He could see the sweat beading off Lister's face. Lister clenched up for a few moments, swearing more frequently than normal, and stronger swear words then Lister's usual choice words.

"Oh smeg, why now?" Lister cried out. "This is all your Uncle Arnie's fault," Lister said to his stomach. "He's the one who told you to be born on Starbug. You should listen to me! I'm your mum after all. You need to wait to be born on Red Dwarf on your due date. You two had to go prove him right, that smug twat." Lister cried out again in pain.

Rimmer had himself turned him visible again.

"Everything alright in here Lister?" Rimmer asked, pretending that he only just arrived.

"Yeah, just fine," Lister lied to him.

Rimmer frowned and said nothing, he just stood and observed. Lister could keep a straight face as he cried out in pain once again.

"That was nothing, I'm fine," Lister panted once the pain subsided.

"Don't lie, I know you're not fine," Rimmer replied. "How long have you known that you're in labour?"

"Since Daniel and Sam went outside. I didn't say anything because I didn't want you to worry. Plus I was hoping that it was fake contractions," Lister explained. "I don't want to have this baby naturally. Rimmer, I'm scared. I don't even know what naturally is since I'm from this dimension and not the same as from the other dimension."

"You're allowed to be scared, but you're not doing this alone. It's not just the two of us anymore. Sam and Daniel are here and a lot more competent than the two of us are. If anyone can deliver a baby by caesarian without previous medical training, it is those two." Rimmer comforted his friend. "They are going to do a lot better job than the scutters I was trying to train."

"Rimmer, thanks for always being there, and trying to help in your own annoying way. As much as I miss Petersen, Chen and Selby, I don't think I would've got through this with them. They'd just tease me constantly about being pregnant and then would spend the rest of the time drunk and laying about, being no help at all. Sure you teased me, but you were helping me even when I was still in denial when I didn't even think I needed help." Lister said. "I think we need to start this now if I'm going to avoid having the baby naturally. I read the book that you got from Arleen, the babies in that universe come out the...well you know, you read the book."

"One place a baby should not come out." Rimmer nodded. "Do you think you can stand?"

Lister nodded, waddling his way towards the door. Having to stop when he was hit by another contraction. Daniel and Sam were both dressed in scrubs when they returned.

"The contractions are a lot closer together now," Rimmer informed them, wishing that he could be more help.

"Dave, are you alright?" Daniel asked.

"Just fine," Lister replied. "Don't you hate that children have a mind of their own when it comes to being born. These tykes want to see the world now."

Daniel helped Dave to the makeshift area they'd set up for his caesarian. Sam helped him out of his restrictive clothing.

"I never imagined a woman would be undressing me like this. It's not sexy at all," Lister complained.

"Practice for when you end up in a nursing home," Rimmer commented. "By that time you will be unable to dress and clothe yourself and will need to be dressed and undressed by the nurses much like this."

Lister chuckled. "Where are we going to find a nursing home in deep space?"

"You want to go back to Earth don't you? Maybe our highly evolved life forms on the planet will be looking after you. If not, I am sure that I can train to scutters to be nursemaids," Rimmer replied.

Lister was connected to the monitoring equipment, given some painkillers. Sam used the ultrasound machine to confirm where the twins were currently sitting before making her first incision.

Rimmer kept up his banter with Lister while Sam and Daniel did their thing.

"Maybe Kryten can be your nursemaid," Rimmer suggested. "If the scutters can't do it. He's been doting over you ever since you fixed him. I'm sure he'd be all too happy to change your nappy and keep you feed."

"What about you?" Lister asked. "What will you be doing?"

"I'm hoping that I haven't gone senile by that point, it can happen you know," Rimmer told him. "Holograms going mad watching the people around them that they love grow old and dying around them. Knowing that only a select few will become holograms. Always staying the same, not changing in any way. You can relax to know that I will be around to watch your children grow up and your grandchildren and so on."

"I don't think that is a relaxing thought," Lister laughed. "Besides I have two boys, we have not come across any women besides Sam. Who are they going to have children with?"

"Well, they come from two dimensions; maybe they will be able to have children both ways. The normal way and the way for that dimension," Rimmer suggested. "Plus I have made significant progress with my cloning experiment."

"You're still trying to clone a new body for yourself? It's not going to work Rimmer." Lister told him.

"I'm not going to give up yet, it is still early days," Rimmer replied.

"Rimmer, you need to learn when to give up and move onto something new. You've been trying and failing the engineering exam for years now. You need to find what you are good at instead of getting nowhere, because what you are trying isn't working."

"You need to take your own advice with the guitar. It's obviously now working for you because you haven't improved at all. Or another suggestion is to actually practice."

"Hey, you complain whenever I try to practice."

"Yes, because you are disturbing me," Rimmer replied. "You need to go practice in private, away from everyone else so you are not disturbing anyone like I do with my hobbies. It's a large ship, you have many places on the ship that you can practice your music and yet you insist on being around me when you do."

They stayed silent for several moments, watching Daniel and Sam work together in silence. It was easy to see how close the two scientists were as they worked and how they were able to communicate nonverbally.

"Vitals are still good," Rimmer announced to Daniel and Sam. "How are you feeling?" Rimmer asked.

"Considering I have two people cutting open my belly, I actually feel rather good," Lister replied.

"So you can't feel any pain?" Rimmer asked.

"Oh I feel pain, but you've been distracting me from it. Thanks, Rimmer," Lister replied. "I can't believe that today is the day that I meet my two boys."

"Still naming them James and Bexley?" Rimmer asked.

"It's Jim, not James," Lister replied.

"It should be James, just like your name is David even though you get called Dave," Rimmer told him.

"Are you really giving me a lecture about what I should call my kids?" Lister asked.

"Of course. Jim is a good nickname but if Jim is his name, you can't really shorten it to anything like with Bexley you can shorten it to Bex." Rimmer told him. "Whenever you were in trouble with your grandma, what did she call you?"

"She used to say my full name and drag it out. I used to be able to gauge how much trouble I was in by timing how she said my name." Lister replied.

"Doesn't a part of you want to do that with your sons?" Rimmer asked. "I always wanted to name a son after myself. Arnold Jonathan Junior. Not going to happen now of course, me being dead and all gets in the way of that plan."

"Your middle name is Judas, you only tell everyone it's Jonathan." Lister pointed out.

"Because I hate my middle name, which is why his middle name would be Jonathan," Rimmer replied. "Like I said, not going to happen."

Both stopped talking as they heard the scream of Lister's first born son. The sticky mess had a full head of hair.

"Do you think you can hold him?" Sam asked.

Lister held out his arms and took the small sticky baby, holding him close. Only moments later he was handed the second baby.

Daniel and Sam continued work on stitching Lister back up.

"So tiny," Lister commented as he held the boys' hands.

"Jim, Bexley. I'm your well technically I'm your mother because I'm the one who gave birth to you but I'm your dad. This is your Uncle Arnie. He's an obnoxious, worry wart of a prat, but you have to remember he's only looking out for you both like I am. We will do everything we can so that future echo your Uncle Arnie saw doesn't come true. You are both going to be healthy and strong and live long lives. I know it's hard to believe since you've only been here in this crazy world for a few minutes."

Daniel snapped a photo of Dave, the twins and Arnold, neither man noticed. Both still glancing over the children.


	8. Eight

Everyone was cleaned up, the twins were cleaned up and dressed in clothes that had been packed just in case anything had gone wrong.

Lister and Rimmer were both asleep on the floor with the newborn twins between them. It had been a long day and everyone was exhausted.

"Can you believe that we delivered twin boys?" Sam asked Daniel. The pair were sitting on the other side of the room together, leaning against one another, wrapped in a blanket. The heating was working, but it was still cold.

"It wasn't that long ago that we delivered Shifu together. When you discovered that the twins were growing too fast, I thought it was going to be like Shifu all over again." Daniel sighed. "I know he's not mine biologically. To me he is my son. I wanted to raise him and that chance was taken away. I'm glad that Dave will be able to raise his sons."

"I sometimes think I made the wrong choice not leaving the SGC to raise Cassie," Sam replied. "That feeling of wanting to settle down and have a family is so strong. So far I haven't found the person that I want to settle down with and raise my children with."

"I thought I'd found that with Sha're." Daniel sighed. "I didn't know we were married, that she'd been given to me until after I'd already fell in love with her. Then the gou'ald had to take her away. The longer she is gone, the more I fear that even if I do get her back that it won't be the same. I know that it won't be the same I mean, just that."

"You don't need to say it Daniel, I understand." Sam smiled. "I wish I had someone like you, Sha're is one lucky woman."

Daniel smiled back. "We make a great team. I was happy to know that we'd be on the same team together, that I wasn't the only scientist on the group. Jack is my friend, but he doesn't understand science. I can't talk to him the way I talk to you."

"I like how you don't make me feel like I'm just a girl in a man's world. You've treated me as an equal from day one. I had to earn the Colonel's respect."

"Sam, do you feel like staying here forever wouldn't be a bad thing?" Daniel asked. "I don't have anything to return to. It was why I was so happy to stay on Abydos. I have no family left, my only living relative is my grandfather and he's never had anything to do with me. I'm a laughing stock to the archaeological community, I still have issues with the whole being declared dead thing when I try to make large purchases. My only friends I work with. Like Catherine and the people at the SGC. My wife has been turned into a monster and I can't look at my in-laws family without feeling guilty about what happened to Sha're."

"I don't have much to return to either," Sam sighed. "I've been so invested in work that I don't have many personal connections outside of work. I don't see Mark and the kids all that often as it is that if I vanish it wouldn't affect them much. I'd miss Cassie, but she has Janet, she doesn't need me. I'd miss home, but it's not at all unpleasant because you are here." Sam smiled.

"Sam, a few years down the track, if we are still stuck here, with no way home. Do you think maybe we could have children together?" Daniel asked. "I want to be a father one day and I know you'd make a great mom."

"I'd like that Daniel. Even if we both get home, and down the track we haven't found Sha're and if I haven't found someone to be in my life, do you think we could still have those children together? I don't think Sha're will hold it against you for not putting your life on hold forever. We don't have to be together, but you're my best friend, and I know that we wouldn't have custody issues. We'd make it work for the kids, even if we did both find someone later on."

"I'd like that Sam," Daniel agreed. "Let's keep this quiet from Jack. I don't think he'd take it very well. The only person outside of us that I would want to discuss this with is Janet."

"I agree. Did you know I didn't have any female friends before I became friends with Janet?" Sam told him.

"I didn't know that. It's weird isn't it, making friends always seems so hard, but with you if felt like the most natural thing in the world," Daniel agreed.

They both smiled as one of the twins started crying. Arnold woke up first and was shouting at Dave to get him to wake up.

"They have an interesting friendship," Sam murmured to Daniel.

They didn't make a move to help, they would if they were asked to help, but those two needed to learn how to raise the boys on their own. They didn't know yet if they would be around forever or not.

It didn't take long for Dave to wake up. Arnold was reading out of a book on how to feed the baby.

It didn't look like Lister was going to produce any milk of his own, though it may have been late coming in. As a result the babies needed to be fed by formula which Sam had been able to make with supplies on the ship and programmed into the computer's memory for different stages of growth. She'd also programmed in age-appropriate meals for the boys.

"You need to make sure it's not too hot," Rimmer instructed. "You don't want to burn the boys, but you don't want it too cold either."

"How am I supposed to know what is too hot or cold?" Lister asked, slightly frazzled.

"Test the temperature on your arm." Rimmer read out from the book.

"It feels warm, is warm good?" Lister asked.

Lister lowered himself to the floor slowly next to the crying infants with two bottles in hand. Trying to work out how to hold both children at the same time, how to feed them both. Rimmer correcting him in whatever he was doing wrong the whole time.

Sam and Daniel both fell asleep watching the pair fussing over the babies.

 

"It's now past our meeting point, Jack should be out looking for us," Daniel suggested.

"We'll start trying to make radio contact every half hour," Sam replied. "Starting from now, using Starbugs radio and our own."

Sam left the first radio message and then took note of the supplies, and how they would ration them out.

"Daniel and I need to go out and clear the solar panels again, so far we've had constant daylight, but I'm not sure how long that will last for. The longer we have daylight the better. If we have constant nights we will lose all power and possibly freeze to death," Sam instructed them. "We have more than enough food to last for a month and even longer for the babies. If we ration the food out, we can make everything last longer in a worst case scenario. It shouldn't come to that, Jack and Teal'c should find us within a matter of days."

"If the power goes down, I only have a couple of hours of backup power for run time." Rimmer paled.

 

They got into a daily routine of checking inventory before breakfast, checking how Lister was healing and the progress of the twins. A general health and well-being check was also done on Daniel, Sam and Rimmer. If all was well, Daniel and Sam would head out to clear the solar panels, then another check-up was done on the pair when they'd return. They'd play Risk and other games to pass the time when the twins didn't need to be attended to, they'd even managed to get Lister to play Risk with them. The games Lister played went slower because he didn't understand the rules.

"Isn't it odd to you to be checking the health and wellbeing of a hologram?" Lister asked. "I mean you don't have holograms where you come from."

"We do have advanced alien technology, this just comes under that category," Sam replied.

"I wish I did your job for a living," Rimmer replied. "I love aliens."

"I once let him investigate a garbage pod for a whole week because he though it belonged to aliens." Lister teased.

Storytelling was something they all had done to pass the time. Rimmer seemed to have the most stories to tell. Daniel and Sam had their fair share, from work in the friend of science for so long, and their recent years of working for the SGC. Of course, they couldn't tell them the stories of the highly classified missions but were still able to tell them about some of the journeys they'd had through the Stargate.

 

Sam left her normal radio message in the hope that Jack and Teal'c would respond.

"Carter, this is O'Neil; what is your current situation, over."

Everyone gathered around the radio as they heard the message.

"We're saved, we've been found." Rimmer gleamed.

Sam smiled as she replied. "Sir, we were hit by a meteorite the first day and crashed into an ice planet. Starbug is buried in ice, we cannot free the ship. Power is still working, enough supplies for three weeks four days without rationing, more if we ration. Everyone is in good health mentally and physically. Over."

"We're two hours from your current location," Jack replied. "Any chance of digging the ship out with more manpower?"

"Yes sir," Sam replied. "As long as the weather holds. No damage to the ship that I can see. Do you want Daniel and I to start working on freeing the ship."

"Are you sure you are both in good enough shape after being down there for four days?" Jack asked.

"Yes sir, we are all fine besides being trapped," Sam replied.

"You have my permission to start digging her out," Jack said. "I'll make sure we have supplies to dig her out. Do you require any additional supplies?"

"No sir, we have plenty of supplies, and a different variety of food, that we don't require anything," Sam replied.

"We'll don't push yourselves too hard," Jack replied.

"It is good to hear you are well, Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said to his teammates. "Are Dave Lister and Arnold Rimmer also well?"

"We're all tickety-boo," Rimmer answered.

"We'll see you kids when we get there," Jack told them.

 

The two hours of waiting for someone to arrive felt longer than the four days of not knowing if they would be found or not.

"We're going home kids, you're going to like it," Dave was telling the boys. "You will get to meet our other friends, Kryten and Cat as well as Teal'c and Jack. Kryten is a mechanoid, robot who comes from a spaceship called the Nova 5. Cat is well a cat, despite the fact he looks human. He was born on the spaceship and is the great-great many great grandson of my old pet cat Frankenstein. Jack and Teal'c come from the same place as Sam and Daniel. You'll just love the Red Dwarf, it's a lot larger then Starbug. Starbug isn't really made for living in, or even overnight trips. We really gotta do something about that. It'll make camping out a lot more comfortable, I haven't liked sleeping on the floor for the past few days."

Rimmer was cataloguing everything he could before the others arrived since he couldn't help Sam and Daniel in digging out the ship.

 

Sam and Daniel both stopped what they were doing and waved at the other Starbug ship which landed.

"Sir, Teal'c, Cat, Kryten. You have no idea how happy we are to see you," Sam greeted her team and friends.

"Good to see you all." Daniel smiled. He gave Jack a hug.

"Good to see you too Danny boy, Carter. Did you have any trouble convincing Lister not to help dig out the ship?" Jack asked.

"For once no, we didn't," Sam replied.

"You two take a break now and warm up. T and I will start digging her out."

"I think you should help as well Mr Cat," Kryten suggested.

"Me dig out a ship, are you mad!" Cat scoffed. "I'm not a dog."

"I'll give you a hug if you help them," Sam told him.

"When do I start?" Cat replied picking up a shovel.

Sam rolled her eyes. The cat was so easy to bribe, he'd never seen a woman up close before herself so he found her rather fascinating. "Kryten, you better come with us, you're not waterproof."

"Yes ma'am," Kryten agreed.

 

Kryten did a double take when he saw Lister holding a baby in each arm as he fed them while talking to Rimmer.

"Mr Lister sir, I am so glad to see you are well," Kryten exclaimed. "Oh and what is that my word it's two tiny humans. I did not know that humans could be that tiny. Where did they come from?"

"They're my babies Kryten; Jim and Bexley. They won't be this small forever." Lister replied.

"How long will they be that small for?" Kryten asked.

"Not long, just see for yourself. They'll change over time," Lister replied. "Where's the Cat? Did he stay behind?"

"I told him I would give him a hug if he helped dig the ship out," Carter replied. "Daniel and I need a change of clothes, hot drink and a rest before we go back out to help. Do you need help with anything?"

"No, we're right, you have your rest," Lister replied.

"Kryten will help if we need anything," Rimmer replied with a smug look.

 

"Oh I am sore," Cat complained as he walked into the ship with everyone else. "Why didn't anyone tell me how sore I am. I'm so sore, I can't even enjoy my hug now. Hey buddy, you will not believe how much work we had to do and you're not even free yet."

"You've had your babies," Jack pointed out. "When? Carter, Daniel; why didn't you make any mention that they'd been born."

"We wanted it to be a surprise," Sam replied.

"They were born the first day we were here, about two hours before we were due to meet," Daniel replied. "We waited to deliver them for as long as we could."

"Everything was a success and Dave is recovering nicely, the twins are hitting milestones for how old they are. No problems in that regard at all." Sam beamed.

"It's been a learning curve for all of us," Daniel replied. "None of us have children, last time I was around kids on a regular basis was when I was in foster care."

Jack looked heartbroken as he looked at the twin boys.

Teal'c sent a rare smile over to the children. "It has been a long time since Rya'c was that small." The large man reminisced. "They grow up so fast."

"Is he your son?" Lister asked.

"Indeed, he is fourteen now," Teal'c replied. "Every time I see him, he is even more grown up than the previous time. My son is almost a man. Your sons both have the making of true warriors. Cherish your time with them."

"I will Teal'c," Lister replied.

"Even at two am when they are screaming?" Rimmer asked. "And you haven't slept for several days?"

"Even then Rimmer," Lister laughed.

Jack did a quick catch up with what had been happening before Sam and Daniel went back out with Teal'c, this time, to continue digging out the ship.

Jack rested, watching Lister fumble as he tried to change one of the twins nappy.

"Why does this have to be so gross?" Lister wrinkles his nose as he changed another nappy.

"Just wait till they get older and start eating food, then you will miss the days when you had to change milk diapers." Jack laughed. "That looks like it's going to leak."

"I've had several of those already."

"Everyone has been leaked on," Rimmer pointed out.

"They leaked through Rimmer," Lister snickered.

"Here, let me do this one," Jack told him. He changed both twins nappies like an expert.

"You've done this before, haven't you?" Rimmer asked sadly. "Charlie, your son we saw in the backwards universe, is he dead in your universe or a messy divorce or something else?"

"He died when he was eight, he accidently shot himself with my pistol," Jack told them grimly. "Cherish every moment with them, protect them the best that you can. I failed and I live with that guilt every day. I failed to protect my son."

"I'm sorry about your son," Rimmer said actually meaning it.

"I can't even imagine what it is like," Lister added.

"Pray that you never find out," Jack told him.

Rimmer and Lister both shared a glance and nodded. They couldn't get complacent just because a future version of Lister mentioned when Bexley dies. If they could, they would do everything in their power to change that event.

 

It took a total of ten hours to free Starbug from the snow. Teal'c was the only one that continued working without a break. Sam, Daniel and Jack kept rotating in and out. Whenever Jack was on break, he'd give Lister and Rimmer more advice about raising children, and tell them stories about his son.

Cat and Kryten both continued to be fascinated by the tiny humans, and Cat was very pleased with his hug that he'd received from Sam, until Lister told him that Sam had her hands inside his belly.

For the return journey to Red Dwarf Cat and Kryten returned to the other Starbug. SG-1, Rimmer and Lister remained on the previously crashed Starbug.

"I'm looking forward to sleeping in a real bed," Sam exclaimed. Everyone agreed with her.

"It's nice to be home." Lister smiled.

SG-1 looked sad at the mention of home, for them Red Dwarf was not there home. They still had no clue how they got there or when they would be heading home.


	9. Epilogue

It was quiet on the Red Dwarf, to quiet. The twins were both sleeping peacefully, Rimmer was reading a book on raising children, Lister was just waking from a nap he'd taken in his lunch. Curry was all over his face.

"Wha time shis it?" Lister sleepy asked.

"Just after two in the afternoon," Rimmer replied not looking up from his book.

"Has Sam stopped by?" Lister asked, looking around his room.

Rimmer put his book down. "Now that you mention it, I haven't seen Sam or any of the others today. Generally, Sam and Daniel would have stopped by several times to check up on you. Even Jack likes to give you some fatherly advice at least once a day."

"Maybe they're just letting me rest?" Lister suggested, finishing his cold meal.

"Maybe, I'll go check on them." Rimmer stood.

Lister got up to follow.

"You should stay here, with them." Rimmer pointed to the two infants asleep on the bottom bunk. "They haven't been asleep long."

Lister sat back down, knowing that Rimmer was right. He didn't just have himself to think about anymore, he had the two children as well.

 

Rimmer walked to the two rooms that had been used by SG-1, finding them both empty. That wasn't unusual. Daniel would often disappear to locations he found interesting from a historical point of view. Sam would often be found in the different science labs and medical bays or the engine room, pretty much anywhere that was scientifically interesting to her. Jack and Teal'c would explore large sections of the ship reporting back to Daniel and Sam the locations they thought the two scientists would like.

Next Rimmer checked the areas nearby he knew were likely to find Sam or Daniel, he found nothing.

"Holly," Rimmer called out to the computer who appeared instantly on the closest screen.

"Yes Arn?" he asked.

"Do you know where Sam and Daniel currently are?" Rimmer asked.

"No longer on the ship," Holly replied.

"What do you mean they are no longer on the ship? Did they take one of the ships out? They generally mention something before they do." Rimmer asked.

"They didn't take a ship. I think they went back home."

"When did they leave? Why didn't they say goodbye?" Upset that they hadn't said goodbye to him. "I thought we were friends, didn't our months of knowing them mean anything to them at all?"

"I don't believe they knew they were leaving," Holly replied. "Just up and vanished they did. Just the same as they had appeared; one minute they weren't there and the next they were."

Holly played back the footage from the lower deck.

"If you have footage, how come you didn't know when they arrived?" Rimmer asked.

"Well, the cameras were still working even if I didn't know about it. But this morning they were walking down the hallway to the science lab, and then they were gone." Holly showed the footage of SG-1 talking. Sam and Daniel both looked excited by some recent discovery. Then they all vanished like they were never there in the first place. Just gone. Rimmer had no idea how he was going to explain this to Lister.

 

"Did you find them?" Lister asked. One of the boys was awake, Lister was nursing the boy, looking extremely nervous. "I really could use their help right now."

Rimmer shook his head. "They're gone Listy, back to where they come from I assume. Holly, can you show him."

The footage played for Lister.

"So we're on our own again?" Lister frowned. "How am I supposed to raise these two? I don't know what I'm doing, you don't know what you're doing. Kryten isn't programmed to look after children, and I won't even start with Cat. I should have asked more questions but I thought we'd have more warning before they left, I mean, I knew they were going to leave, but I didn't expect it to be this way. I thought we would have noticed."

"We'll manage, we always have," Rimmer assured Lister.

"Yeah, but before we didn't have any lives that depended on us to survive. Two helpless lives and you saw one of them die in the drive room when we saw in the future echoes." Lister paled.

"Yes, it was a very traumatic experience for me." Rimmer nodded.

"But don't you get it. My son is going to die? When he's a couple of years younger than I am now, he's dead." Lister was getting hysterical about what the future was going to bring.

Lister looked at his children. As much as he loved them, he was terrified to be doing this with Rimmer as his primary support. Rimmer! Who would ever expect that his neurotic bunkmate would be his support for his children?

"I've understood that for a long while now, you were the one who didn't understand. At the time you were just relieved to find out the person who died wasn't you. So far we have been unable to prevent any of the future echoes from happening. Maybe in the future, we will find a way to prevent that, at least we know they survive to adulthood. Our responsibility is to make sure both those boys have a better childhood then we both had, and to know they are loved and not disappointments or mistakes. If we can't change the future, we'll just have to make sure that the years in between now and then are good ones."

Lister picked up both his sons. "I will have you both know, that you're the best mistake I ever made." While he would change some things about how he got his children, if he could, he no longer regretted how he got them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While this is end of this portion or the story, it is not the end or the series. The story breaks into two stories from this point. The first To Destiny and Beyond follows the adventures of SG-1 after they leave the Red Dwarf and will start posting soon. 
> 
> The Human, The Hologram and Two Babies following an AU of the Red Dwarf series with Lister and Rimmer raising the twins. I am still working on the Red Dwarf portion of the story and am unsure how long it will be before I start posting.


End file.
